Home Sweet Home
by Just-A-Gurl13
Summary: What if the X-files happened in my own little world? Yup that's what's happening. I got this idea after reading a few different ones and wanted to use all characters from the show. Therefore what happens when Mulder, after working alone for so long, gets a new partner? Is it more than he bargained for or is it just what he needed?
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is just an alternate universe for the x-files. I've borrowed the characters, threw in a few of my own, and do have a bit of a bones feeling as well. Therefore, episodes in reference will not be at the same time as they do in the series.

"Keep him under control!" was yelled out the door as Special Agent Dana Scully closed the Assistant Directors door behind her and headed for her new assignment.

Originally when this had all started, she was called in as a favor to do an autopsy. That was when she originally met him two years ago. At that point, she'd been called in at the lab in Virginia near Quantico late at night, with a car seat in tow. She had just returned from maternity leave and felt she could not turn any assignment or request down. Luckily at that point in her life, nothing could be recalled by the child seat. Soon she discovered that he was always asking for her to do his autopsies. That was what led to this new assignment.

As the elevator dinged and she stepped out onto the basement floor towards a door marked Fox Mulder; she took one last deep breath, smoothing out the wrinkles of her suit, making sure no cereal was anywhere on them. She tucked a few stray red hairs behind her ear, put a smile on her face and knocked. "No one here but the FBI's unwanted." She'd pulled open the door, smile faltering a bit as he turned in the chair to look at who was in his office. He knew he'd recently gotten a partner but he'd expected someone much older, not the young …. Lady seemed the only appropriate word, standing in front him. She cast her eyes down. He suddenly felt a pang of guilt. She looked back up, smile on her face and stuck her tiny hand out.

"Hi Agent Mulder, I'm Dana Scully. I'm your new partner." He took the hand taking her in as she continued. "I'm very excited to be working with you. I've heard all about you at Quantico." He was looking up and down her form. Beautiful deep blue eyes, red hair with blonde scattered in, freckles she was desperately trying to hide behind her make up. Curves all in the right place, however at the mention of Quantico, he dropped her hand and stopped observing.

"Spooky Mulder right?" He questioned her. She smiled quickly and shook her head. "No. Your profiles." He turned to his desk and picked up a file, handing it to Scully giving her a break down.

"Kids in Oregon, having multiple abductions. Our flight leaves at 8:00am. Might want to look over that." Her face dropped slightly.

"8:00am …."

"Tomorrow".

She sighed. "Oh. Ok." She stepped out into the hallway to make a few phone calls, leaving for the day.

He stared at her in the passenger seat of the car he was driving. He was actually not minding having a partner. She'd proven herself useful.

"So what's your deal anyways? You look like your 12." Scully frowned slightly then looked up and at Mulder.

"No deal" she said then looked back down.

"But I mean, you're like a baby for a doctor."

Scully smiled, realizing he wasn't trying to be an ass or start a fight. "No deal. Just smart I guess. I got to go to kindergarten when I was 4. I insisted on going with my older brother Charlie when he got to go to school all day." She shrugged. "Couldn't be left out. Proved myself smart. Took college classes during high school and when I graduated high school, I didn't have much left to do to complete my undergrad. Completed the undergrad in a semester. Took the MCATs and went to medical school." She trailed off.

"And you went to teach at Quantico instead of pursuing medicine?" Mulder asked, cocking an eyebrow. If she was as smart as she was, why drop a high profile career path like that?

She shrugged. "Life happens." He smiled. She may not believe in aliens but she was about finding the truth. She had said she was going to try to keep an opened mind, however, she liked her science. He had to give her credit. "I would also like to state for the record that Doogie Howser was much younger than me."

"Mulder it's me. I'm assuming your out since Colton gave us the night off. I say we file a complaint against him. I'm furious! Call me when you get back in." Scully hung up the phone, and turned the water on in the tub when something fell and hit her.

Bile.

Scully looked up and took the cover off the vent to come face to face with Tooms. He launched himself on top of Scully, while she kicked and screamed. Grabbing his face, she tried to put her thumbs in his eyes. He got off her quickly and broke the window, realizing he had to get out. He had seriously underestimated this woman. Scully got up and tackled him, thoroughly pissed off. Mulder came through the door as Tooms turned to choke Scully. Tooms was soon stopped.

Soon after, crime scene investigators came out, while a call to her super got her a new window after her old window was dusted. Mulder stood talking to Skinner as the crime scene unit began to walk in. Scully moved towards a doorway down the hall and closed the door, knowing no one needed to be there for dusting or anything, not wanting to share that place with the world. When Scully reappeared Skinner was gone and Mulder was sitting on the sofa. Deep down, Scully was grateful for the commotion. It kept Mulder from noticing his surroundings. Scully went and sat next to him.

"Thanks." She mumbled. Mulder nodded. He noticed a picture behind Scully's head, near the lamp and picked it up. Scully was holding up the arms to some chubby girl, wearing a sun hat and floaters on her arms while the waves rolled in, the baby in the green suit looked about to dance. Scully was smiling down, herself in a navy one piece that happened to be very nice to her cleavage, her hair curled and freckles covering her nose. "Cute kid" Mulder said. "Must like being an aunt." He looked over the apartment now that things were calming down. "Must be a great aunt, taking care of her." Scully's breath stopped for a moment as he took in the booster seat at the table. She exhaled.

"Yeah. Um. Emily's a great kid." Mulder was so dense sometimes, however this time she was not going to complain.

They'd been working together several months now, when his old flame from Oxford showed up. Scully had called and left a message with Skinner and him, telling them she would be in late today. Something had come up suddenly. Phoebe had already been by, explaining that as of late, three British politicians had suddenly burst into flames, and was here providing security to one Sir Malcolm Marsden. Even though Mulder wanted to take care of this one himself, he still needed to bounce off of Scully. But where was she?! He picked up his phone and called her home. Busy signal greeted his ear. He then tried her cell phone. It sent him straight to voicemail. Annoyed, he picked up his jacket and keys and walked out the door.

Twenty minutes later he was knocking on Scully's door. He heard her rush to the door, all the while "Oh thank god! Thank you so much Mo-" She stopped short, realizing it was Mulder standing in her doorway and not her mother she had called earlier this morning. "Well. You're not my mother. Um. Come in." Mulder had shock written all over his face.

On Scully's hip was a very small child with piercing blue eyes and red curls. The little face was tucked to Scully and flushed with tear tracks running down. As Scully stepped aside and let Mulder in, Scully shut the door and began walking back and forth, slowly rocking herself. "Your phone" was all Mulder could muster.

Scully blushed. "After I called my mom, I kept it off the hook, hoping to get this little one back to sleep." Mulder stood there watching Scully in the kitchen, holding this little chubby thing. Suddenly, the little thing threw up down the front of Scully and she stopped her movements. "Oh Emily. Not again." She started walking towards the hall way and to a room with a baby gate across the door, rubbing the little things back all the while. "I'll be right back" She set the toddler down who immediately began to cry hysterically. Scully rushed off into her bedroom, ripping her top off to put a new one. Still listening to the crying child, she began to run water in the sink over the shirt. But as she turned the water off to let the shirt soak, she realized there was no crying.

She bolted out the door to Emily's room. Mulder had come out of his daze of just following Scully around and while she had gone to clean her shirt up, the crying toddler must have tugged at his heart strings, because he'd climbed the baby gate and picked the child up and sat in the rocker with the child on his lap. Scully stood in the doorway of the room. "Um. Scully. You might want to finish getting dressed." Mulder's face redden. Damn did her chest look good, encase in lace.

Scully looked down and saw in her haste to see why her child had stopped crying she ran out only wearing her bra. She bolted back to her room, running the water to the sink again, splashing the cold to her face. She quickly pulled a shirt on and went back to Emily's room. To her surprise, Emily was passed out holding her pink blanket on Mulder's lap in the rocker, with her thumb in her mouth. She climbed the baby gate as well, picked the sleeping one up and carefully laid her into her bed, while pointing that Mulder should go to the kitchen. "Watch the baby gate," She mouthed at him, knowing that running into that left marks on your shins for weeks.

In about five minutes Scully arrived back in the kitchen and placed the phone back on the hook. "So" Mulder said, not really knowing where to go with this.

"So" Scully said. Mulder was curious. Why hadn't Scully ever mentioned her? He considered Scully to be one of the only people he trusted, so why leave such an important part of her life out of office? Mulder also still had his mind on other things, such as Scully's tight stomach and perky chest.

"So I guess its time to tell you the truth. That was Emily. She's not my niece. She's my daughter." She waited for Mulder to say anything at that point.

"Cute kid" he said grinning at her after what felt like an eternity.

"If you call the terrible twos cute". She was grateful he didn't dive in wanting answers.

The landline rang. Scully and Mulder jumped. A comfortable silence had built between the two of them. The machine picked up. "Dana, it's me," Scully jumped up for the phone. "Mom! Hi Mom. It's ok. Wow. Now that's a mess. No it's ok. I'll work from home today. Love you too. Bye." Scully set the phone down. "Hope that's ok. My mom is stuck in traffic. It'd probably take her another 90 minutes to get here."

Mulder grabbed the file he'd stuck on the counter through his shock.

"I need to take care of this on my own, but I still wanted to run this by you." Scully looked through the file.

Originally for Phoebe, this case had started back in England with a man waving goodbye to his wife and instead managed to spontaneously catch fire and dance around, burning to death in the driveway. However, when Phoebe had placed the recording in Mulder's car she was not expecting to see the two agents together as they were. That was the day before. When Phoebe finally had Dana in her vision, she tried to mark her territory, leaning in and up on the balls of her feet and kissing Mulder. Scully felt awkward. The pervious morning, Mulder had met her little one, a part of her life that she allowed no one but her family in, and had trusted Mulder. She felt like the odd man out, sitting in the basement office. Phoebe was bluntly rude to her. She hadn't felt this way since her youth.

Mulder had promised, after conferring with Scully, to run this case by the arson guys. Phoebe met Mulder in an upper office that after noon, Scully sneaking in to stand watch, only at the back door, trying to draw zero attention to herself, which she did manage, as the FBI's top arson guys went over details with Phoebe. Phoebe admitted they had looked into much of the same ideas the arson guy was talking to her about, however, they had come up empty handed. No accelerant. No starter device. Mulder was intrigued.

Meanwhile, that afternoon, Sir Malcolm and his family showed up to a home in Cape Cod, being rented for the summer. Little did they know a firebug was watching them. "Hi. I'm Bob. The caretaker. We've been exchanging emails." Bob informed the couple that they could call on him day or night if anything was needed as he made his way out into the yard. The family dog was digging things up in the garden. "Bob" ran over to chase the dog away. No way was this dog going to ruin him.

Back at the FBI, Scully was sitting at Mulder's desk, waiting for Mulder to come back, staring at a file. Mulder walked back in, looking as if he'd seen a ghost. "I told you Scully, you're off the hook for this one." Scully stared at him. "I'll let you in on a secret. I'm terrified of fire. My friend's house, when I was little, burned to the ground and we had to spend the night in the rubble, keeping away looters. Ever since." Mulder trailed off.

"And Phoebe knows this?" Scully questioned.

"It's classical Phoebe." Mulder stated. Scully shook her head.

"So basically, she just shows up, and she knows the power she has over you." Scully trailed off under her breath. "Are you sure you don't want my help." Mulder stood up shaking his head.

The next morning, Mulder had called Phoebe down and they were at the hospital. "I pulled this off the wire last night. Said a customer caught fire. They're still looking for a body. Supposedly melted concrete." Mulder signed a log before going over, knocking on the door, entering in. After talking to the woman, convincing her to go down and talk to a sketch artist to draw up the guy who had set himself on fire. The woman laying in the hospital did manage to recall one vivid detail at that moment; the guy was British, or at least spoke with a British accent. After leaving the room, Phoebe tried to make small talk.

"So you ignored her indiscretions like they were nothing."

"A skill I perfected with you." Mulder looked down. "Sorry. That was a cheap shot. I don't want to drag up the past." Phoebe was angry.

"Don't you think ten years should be long enough to be forgotten about?"

Scully sat in the basement office. She knew Mulder asked her not to get involved, but she couldn't help it. It was sitting right there, in front of her. Mulder had obviously ran off and left it sitting there. She wasn't sure why but it annoyed her. Tentatively, she opened the manila folder and began looking over everything. Booting up her own laptop, she slowly began to build her own profile. She had papers being checked for people coming into the country as well. If this had happened overseas to three other people, this had to be a jumping point.

Meanwhile at the house in Cape Cod, the children were outside playing, while Bob painted a swing set in the yard, near the two boys playing soccer. "Do you boys want to see a magic trick?" He called out. The two came running over. "What's your names?"

"I'm Michael, and that's Jimmy." Bob began to entertain the two, magically lighting cigarettes on fire. Time went by and the boys' mother came out calling them over to her. Bob stood up, smiling.

"We've had a bit of bad news. Our driver has taken ill and we're due in Boston tonight for a party. We were wondering if we could impose on you to drive us. We'd be happy to pay you for your time as well as putting you up for the night." Bob was shaking his head.

"No. I'd be happy to do it." Bob had laid his trap.

Phoebe and Mulder walked through the rain. "We're going to have to keep them under cover for awhile." Mulder said. Phoebe nodded.

"Oh. There's a party be given for them in their honor tonight. In Boston. I suppose we could cancel."

"Unless," Mulder stopped her, "you wanted to set a trap."

Hours later, Scully called Mulder. She had something major to show him. Emily was in the backseat, flinging her little legs around, holding onto her teddy bear and pink blanket. "Mommy." She kept calling from the backseat.

"Hold on baby." She said, looking into the rearview mirror at Emily in the backseat, her happy two year old being vocal, as Mulder picked up his phone.

"What did you say?"

"Not to you Mulder. Where are you? I've got something to show you."

"I'm actually in Boston." Scully sighed. She guessed she would be making a road trip that evening.

"I'm coming up."

It was dark by the time Scully got there. She had made a trip over to her parents own vacation house in the Cape that they had recently bought, now being child at home free, to drop off Emily, who by that time, had her head drooped over in sleep after watching Clifford the Big Red Dog. It was obvious the party was well under way. Scully felt awkward, arriving in her navy trouser pants, low heels, and black button down dress shirt. As she entered into the lobby just outside the party, she came across Phoebe, wearing a long black party dress, with low cut reveling sweetheart top to it, and Mulder, wearing a tuxedo, dancing. Scully didn't know why, but she felt as if she'd been slapped in the face. She turned to leave, to go back to her parent's home, but came across a man, glaring at her from behind a plant, almost glaring in the direction of the couple dancing in the lobby. Scully turned again, not sure what to do, but when she turned back, the man was gone. She, herself, was about to leave when, while walking towards the door, near the elevator of the lobby, she noticed a flashing red light going off. It was indicating smoke on the fourteenth floor. She ran through the two dancing. "There's a fire on the fourteenth floor."

"The children!" Phoebe said, calling the authorities. Mulder, swallowing his fear went running up. He heard the children calling for help and waded in through the thick smoke, attempting to find them. Meanwhile, down in the lobby, the distraught parents were relieved when the elevator popped open to Bob, holding Jimmy and Michael. Meanwhile on the fourteenth floor, Mulder had succumb to smoke inhalation and the fire fighters were rescuing him. The last thing that Mulder could recall was Scully leaning over him.

Mulder woke, coughing. His throat hurt. His chest hurt. His eyes burned. The sunlight pouring in through the open shades did not help matters much. Slowly, images from the previous evening played themselves out. Mulder looked up to see Scully, leaning over him, handing him a glass of water. After taking the glass and a drink, all Mulder could muster was "Where's Phoebe?" Scully was hurt. Covering her hurt up, she answered Mulder's question.

"She's down the hall."

"How are the kids?"

"They're ok. A doctor checked them out." Mulder coughed, climbing out of bed. He wasn't sure when the dress shirt came off, but it was off. He was only wearing the tuxedo pants. "What happened up there?" Mulder, shook his head at his partner.

"I panicked Scully. I just froze up." Mulder went into the bathroom.

"It could have happened to anyone Mulder." Scully called out after him, attempting to be supportive even though he was clearly being an ass to her. Mulder frustrated, ran his hands through his hair.

"But it happened to me!" He yelled at Scully. A small thought had been building in the back of Scully's mind through the night, over her watch of Mulder.

"Mulder… What do you know about the guy that saved the kids. The driver?" Phoebe choose that moment to make herself present in the room.

"I personally checked him out myself." Mulder took that moment to reappear.

"Was he watching the kids last night?" Scully asked, sick of Phoebe's "I'm better than you" tone. She nodded. "Well I thought I saw him down in the lobby around the time the fire broke out."

"Impossible" Phoebe said. Mulder coughed. "I came to see how you were doing. Everyone's anxious to get back."

"To the Cape?"

"No. We're going back to England the day after tomorrow. I'll give you a ring before I leave." With that Phoebe took her leave of the room. Mulder sat down on the sofa in the room, completely defeated. Scully didn't know why she was so upset, but she swallowed back her tears and emotions and sat down in front of the now, boxer and robe clad Mulder.

"Interested?" She asked, holding up a folder. Mulder shrugged.

"I guess so." Scully slid the folder over to him across the coffee table Mulder was using as an ottoman.

"I took the liberty to run the names through Interpol of all the servants who worked for the victims around the time of death. Mulder… These people can't even tie their own shoes. Over two hundred names. And no duplicates…Except for one. A Cecil Lively. Model citizen of Great Britain until he was killed in 1971 in a fire." A little glimmer was coming back into Mulder's eye. "I checked Cecil apostrophe Lively, and this came up twice. One was a child killed in ritualistic sacrifice outside of Bath in 1963 and a visa stamped a couple of weeks ago." Mulder jumped up and handed orders to Scully.

A couple of hours later and Scully was on the phone. She had been fighting with a fax machine the last couple of hours, a battle which she was obviously losing by the lack of fax. She was calling to ask them to send the composite of a fire suspect over. As it began to finally come through she saw a face she recognized. The driver. She immediately began to try calling Mulder. As luck would have it, his cell phone was either turned off or dead. Voice mail all the way.

Mulder had made his way back to the Cape Cod rented home, believing the arsonist would be lying in wait at the home. As he pulled into the driveway, barely remembering to put the car in park and turn it off, he bolted through the door. He wasn't sure why, but his stomach sank. Phoebe was on the stairs kissing the very man she was supposed to be protecting. They parted and stared at the intruder. Phoebe walked down the stairs towards Mulder, not knowing what to do fully. Mulder fixed that for her. "His name is Cecil Lively. Where's the rest of the family? We have to get them packed and get them out of here."

Mulder answered the door to let Scully in. Scully, after having received the composite, had driven straight out, after stopping to pick up Emily and hope that she would just sleep through this one. Mulder, idiot that he was, turned his phone back on to get the voice mail of Scully screaming at him and saying she was on her way out. She was there by nightfall. Scully looked upwards and into Mulder's eyes. He hated that he could never get away from those caring yet prying eyes. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah." Mulder nodded as the family came down the stairs, Phoebe in tow.

"It's the driver!" Scully said, digging the composite out of her pocket.

"And he's disappeared." Mulder told her. Sir Malcolm looked down. He began to shake his head.

"This isn't the driver. This is the care taker."

"And he's upstairs with the children!: His wife gasped out. They began running up the stairs. Everyone was calling out. "Michael. Jimmy."

The walls began to burst into flames along with the drapes and bedding. "He's rigged the entire house." Mulder said, smelling what he was holding. "It's soaked." As he ran down the stairs with Phoebe, Scully, Sir Malcolm and Sir Malcolm's wife, Mulder knew it was time to take action. He couldn't let his fears control him. Not when innocent lives were at stake. "Everybody out."

Mulder went up the stairs attempting to look for the children and their puppy. Mulder was fiddling with a doorknob when Cecil appeared at the end of the hallway. "Time to call 9-1-1-" He said mockingly at Mulder. Mulder was coughing, the smoking was getting to him, but he couldn't let anything happen to Jimmy and Michael. Cecil walked past him, lighting up walls and the ceiling.

Meanwhile, Scully being the great listener that she was, stopped Cecil at the bottom of the stairs with her gun drawn, making an attempt to grab at the can Mulder had showed her when she first walked into the door. "Stop right there! Federal Agent!" She yelled at him. He began walking towards her taunting her.

"Don't you realize that just one spark from that gun and we all go up." Naturally Scully had realized all of this but was buying herself time to grab the can of accelerant Mulder had shown her. She managed to bend down and pop it open throwing the fluid onto Cecil. Cecil began to stagger out of the house and into the yard, while Mulder made his way out with Jimmy and Michael in his arms, they're dog at his heels. Cecil decided if he was going down, he would go down in flames and lit himself up. The family was torn between watching Cecil or watching the home.

A month later, Scully was finishing an add on to the report. Cecil was being studied. Everyone was amazed at his basal cell tissue's regrowth properties. He had been admitted with fifth and sixth degree burns, ones, which no one would normally survive, instead, he was healing, and was expected to have recovered within the month.

Scully sat at the laptop, pounding on the keys, while Mulder kept staring at her. She kept glancing up, trying to ignore his gaze. He hadn't been right since Phoebe showed her face. He kept knocking her foot with his underneath the desk. Scully had been painfully distant with him since. He couldn't understand. Was it the fact that he knew the truth about Emily and Scully's past that caused her to build a brick wall around her towards him, or could he be hoping too much, that somehow, she had been jealous of Phoebe? Yes, Phoebe was his past and he could never care for her in that way ever again. She had cheated, multiple times on him throughout their relationship. She had just always held some strange power over him, as if he needed to prove that he could be the better person, help her, but be over her. God, he really hoped it was the second of the two. Scully fed up with him tapping her foot every few moments looked up. "Yes Mulder?" It was almost like being with Emily that day.

"How's Emily?" He asked, trying to keep it all light, smiling, deep down, he knew it was the second reason.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Sorry my chapters are so long, eventually I'll break them up. Just wanted to at least get the first six out to you in a short span to see how it was going, whether or not I should even bother to keep writing. Thanks for the support either way. :D

After nearly a year of working together, Mulder still never asked about Emily and still, Scully never offered anything up. Their partnership grew, and was something Scully truly enjoyed. She liked spending time with Mulder and invited him over often. In fact, Mulder had come over to dinner tonight. After dinner, Emily insisted upon climbing up into his lap while watching Elmo in her cute nearly three-year-old way and fallen asleep. Mulder was rubbing her back in small circles, occasionally brushing the springing curls out of her face. Scully had just finished the dishes and walked by silently, bending down to pick the sleeping toddler up and carry her off to bed. While picking her up, Scully mouthed "stay" to Mulder. As she adjusted the sleeping child in her arms to bend down and pick up Emily's blankie off of Mulder's lap, "I'll be right back." She padded off to her toddler's room and was back again shortly. She was carrying two wine glasses and a bottle of wine and sat next to Mulder as he moved up off the floor. Scully smiled as she poured. "Glitter looks good on you". He looked down to his t-shirt and shook the silver glitter from Emily's wand off. They sat back into the sofa with the wine while Scully tucked her feet up under her. They chatted and sipped; Scully giggling like a schoolgirl. It'd been so long since she'd had an adult conversation, outside of work.

Suddenly the moment got serious. Mulder wondered if it was something he said, did he ruin it? "He was my grad school professor and advisor." She blurted out. "By the time I found out, he had gone on sabbatical to fix his marriage." A tear trailed down her cheek. "I hurried and finished and got out. I never told him. Daniel- Daniel needed to figure his own life out first. I'm not sure he ever will, but I can't have that in Emily's life. She needs to not have hatred about her, about her being born. She could never have had that with Daniel." She sighed. "I left. Quit medicine and began to teach. I guess Quantico liked my style because I landed myself with you. I'm not sorry about any of the decisions I have ever made though." Mulder hated seeing Scully beat up on herself. He knew she already had a difficult time. Raising a child on her own. Being a woman in the FBI. Getting herself stuck with Spooky Mulder. He slid her into his side, turning her head up at him. He brushed the tears away with his thumb. He slowly leaned down into the small red head in front of him and kissed her. Slowly and cautiously at first, but when she didn't pull away he deepened the kiss. He pulled back and broke the kiss. "Shhh. Scully." She knew deep down he'd been beating himself up about what had happened to her and she really did mean it when she said she would make the same decisions again. Mulder sat there holding her in his arms, her cheek to his chest, while he rested his chin on the top of her head.

"Mommy" woke them both up from their position on the sofa. Scully pushed herself off Mulder's chest and tried to stand. "Ugh. No Mommy." She mumbled. "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" Emily realizing her mommy wasn't in her bedroom went about the house yelling, trying to find her. Mulder slid out from underneath Scully and popped around the sofa startling Emily, while pulling her into his arms by her arms. "Monster!" Mulder yelled. Emily screamed while laughing, her little red curls swinging. Scully had buried her head under a pillow at her child's high-pitched laughter. Oh she knew she was going to be sorry for the amount of wine drank last night. At least it was a Saturday. Mulder had put Emily down and she had climbed on Scully's stomach. "Mommy is Saturday!" Scully had taken her head out and placed it on top of the pillow. Emily was hopping on her stomach with every word. "You're right baby. It is." Scully said tucking Emily's hair behind her ear. "Mulder come too!" Scully suddenly stopped Emily. "No Emily. This is Mulder's day off. He doesn't want to do girly things with us." Emily's lip quivered. She looked up at Mulder. "You no want to be with us?" Mulder picked Emily off Scully and snuggled up to her. "I sure do if you and your mom will let me."

Scully shook her head while on the bench of the dance studio, Emily in between her legs, as she was finishing pulling Emily's hair into a tight curly knot. Sticking in just one more bobby pin, Mulder sat down next to the set. "Ok Emily. All set. Have fun." Emily turned to look at her mom and Mulder. She nodded, tugging up the strap of her leotard. "Don't forget to watch me," she said taking off with a bunch of other little girls in big pink tutus and pink leotards and tights just like Emily as the door of a room opened up. "Mulder, you don't have to do this." Scully said while picking up the mess Emily had left in between her feet. True, she had always dreamed of showing up at the studio like every other mom on Saturday, with daddies watching their daughters proud. Scully picked up Emily's denim skirt she had worn over her leotard, having already folded her sweater up. "Do you not want me here?" He asked, slightly hurt. He thought of the connection they had made last night and was hurt Scully would want to take it back. "It's fine Mulder," Scully replied getting flushed, tucking her own curls behind her ear, since in her morning haste she didn't have time to blow dry her hair straight. Mulder had decided it was out to breakfast before Prima Ballerina Emily's class, leaving little time for Scully to get ready because to get Emily cleaned up dressed and out the door took most of her time.

Emily was hopping all over the place; she was so excited to have a visitor come to watch her in ballet that morning. She was going to be just like all the other little girls in her class today. Mulder nudged Scully indicating with a tip of the head to look at the window. There was Emily waving at the two of them, waiting in line to go skipping across the floor. Mulder looked over at Scully as Emily got to the other side of the room smiling and taking the hand of a girl in her class. She felt him looking at her. "Sometimes I feel bad she doesn't get two parents." Mulder slid in closer, arm touching arm, lending her comfort. They sat like that the remaining of Emily's class. Soon the girls came out with stickers and smiles. Naturally, Emily's bun had fallen out into a messy curly ponytail high on her head with her bangs swept back. She immediately climbed into Mulder's lap. Scully began taking off her slippers. "You were the best one in there," Mulder said squeezing Emily's shoulders into him. Emily giggled. "I know. I'm going to be a ballerina someday." Scully shook her head as she wrangled Emily out of the tutu and into her skirt. "Well I'll have to come watch when I can, so I can brag to everyone that I watched you before you were famous." Emily now on the ground standing in her shoes Scully was buckling looked up, eyes wide. Mulder could feel Scully tense. He knew he was probably in trouble, but it didn't matter to him. "Really?" Emily asked. Mulder nodded. "Whenever I'm not busy." Scully kept her head down with her hair covering her face, continuing to work on Emily's shoes. She couldn't look up right now. She was embarrassed she had basically admitted she wanted Emily to have a dad and there Mulder was, as always, stepping up and there were tears in her eyes. She breathed deeply before looking up with Emily's zip sweater to put her arms in. "I think I owe the two prettiest girls here ice cream." Emily began bouncing. "Emily! Calm down. Your sweater." She let her mother zip it up. Silently Scully was so happy to have Mulder in her life. Something had always tugged at her heart about him, but it began to tug further.

Mulder was in the room with everyone being questioned, yet again, about another case they had just finished. It was being to feel like it was a standard protocol with the two of them. Scully was staring at the floor. It was tilting, but it wasn't when she heard the door click and a pair of men's dress shoes stood in front of her. Mulder's face appeared in her vision as he squatted down to her eye level. "You don't look so good Scully. But we're fine. As always." Mulder told her thinking it was this ridiculous lets call the two of them in there and question them routine getting to her. She nodded, and knew that was a bad move. Deeply inhaling she stood up and regretted that too. Back on the bench she went. Standing. No good. Mentally noted. "Ok Scully, you really don't look well." Mulder noticed her cheeks were flushing but she seemed to be shivering. He put his hand gently to her forehead. "Scully. I think we'd better get you home."

He wrapped his hand around her upper arm for support, trying not to bring notice to them until he got her out to the parking lot. Scully stood by shakily. As soon as they were in the parking structure, Mulder wrapped his arm around her waist to better support her. He just knew he had to get her home. She was burning up. He gently sat her in the passenger seat of his car. "I'll be right back, I need to grab our stuff."

Mulder hi-tailed it back to the basement grabbing their coats and brief cases, along with whatever he had been working on to take home with him since it was already so late in the day, he just mind as well work from the comfort of his sofa. When he got back to the car, Scully was sleeping, sweat forming around her hairline. He knew Scully had been having a difficult time. Not sleeping much with Emily and her new game of let's get up every ten minutes and the case, she must have run herself down. As he opened the back door of the car, Scully's eyes shot open. "I'll have you home in a bit" Mulder said, opening the front door to climb in. "Where are you going?"

Scully had bolted from the car and around a corner. Mulder went to find her and find her he did, clinging to one of the cement columns for support. He figured she must have gotten herself sick. She weakly turned around and Mulder went and put his arm around her waist again to get her back to the car. He loved the closeness of those moments but would have chosen a different way to get close to her. He brushed her hair back off her forehead as they walked back to the car.

In minutes they were in her Georgetown home. He had just gotten Scully on the sofa when her phone rang. He picked it up as she lay down. She was really out of it. "Scully residence." The woman on the other end of the line sounded absolutely shocked a man had answered the phone.

"This is Ms Wilson of Happy Day Child Care. It's past five and Dana's not here to pick up Emily." Mulder cursed himself. He'd been so preoccupied with Scully and the inquisition he had never noticed the time.

"I'm her partner Fox Mulder. Scully's a bit off the weather. Can I come pick Emily up?" The woman on the other end hesitated. "I'll put her on right now. If she gives a verbal ok and I show you my ID would any of that help?" Mulder knew that Mrs. Scully would take time to get to Emily and Scully was in no shape to get back into a car. "Yes. If I can get a verbal ok and your ID that should work." Mulder walked around to the front of the sofa. "Scully. I didn't notice the time. Emily's day care needs her to be picked up." Scully shot up. "Oh my god." She went right back down. "Ugh. My mother. Crap. She's gone for the week in California. Oh god, what am I going to do?"

Scully was panicking. Fearing of making herself worse. "Shhh. I'll get her. The day care's on the phone. They said if you give a verbal ok and I show my ID I can get her. Hell. I'll just leave them my badge number since I know this is unorthodox but I know you can't get back into a car." Scully's lip quivered. She nodded and took the phone from Mulder. "Ms Wilson. I am so sorry. While working today I ended up ill and I can't get Emily. My mothers out of town but my partner did offer to get Emily. I promise he'll even leave his badge number but he's on his way out the door to get her right now." And good as his word, Mulder was on his way.

Emily went running into his arms. He laughed at the image he was greeted with. Emily's red curls down but her bangs brushed back to the side with a barrette. Her chubby little legs in grey leggings while the pattering of her little black boots warned him he was in for a tackle. "Mulder!" She screamed excitedly, as he bent down to pick her up into a hug. He was busy pulling down her denim baby doll dress he'd mistakenly bunch up in the process of the hug when the teacher came out.

Mulder smiled, setting Emily down for a moment. "Hi. Fox Mulder." He said arm and hand extended while pulling his badge out with the other, flipping it opened. She took his hand meekly and shook it. Emily was jumping up at Mulder's leg to be picked up again. He bent down, while shoving his badge and ID back into his pocket to pick Emily up. Emily turned in his arms and waved. "Bye Ms Wilson". Then Emily turned her full attention back to Mulder. "Mulder! You picked me up today. Mommy or Gramma always pick me up. But today you did!" Emily was talking a mile a minute as Mulder turned and began walking with her in his arms to the car. He was opening the back door when Emily squealed, "I get to ride in the big girl seat? Mommy never lets me!" Mulder realized she was small and still needed a car seat but that was something he lacked. He would just be extra careful with her in the car. "Don't ever tell your Mom Emily, but it's a one time deal, ok?" Emily nodded as he buckled her into the back seat.

After what felt like an eternity of traffic laws and red lights, Mulder finally had made his way back to Georgetown and with Emily in his arms was opening Scully's door. He put her down when they stepped in and began to unload her of her little pink book bag, her black sweatshirt like trench coat and her little black boots. Emily finally stopped chatting for a moment to take this all in. "Where's Mommy?" She asked.

Good question. Mulder looked for where he had left her on the sofa in what he knew Scully would dub her I'm dying position, but she wasn't there. "Go take your stuff into your room Emily. I'll be right there." Mulder went to check and see if Scully was in her bed as Emily patted her way towards her bedroom with her bag. He went into Scully's bedroom only to find the sheets pulled back, clothing on the floor, her shoes scattered but no Scully. Ok. Now he was starting to panic. He went to the opened bathroom door in her master. There was something on the floor. Keeled over. Scully! He rushed to her side on patted the side of her face after rolling her over. "Scully. Are you ok." Scully moaned. "The ground just kinda popped out." She mumbled. He picked her up and carried her over into her bed, well aware that Scully was in a mid thigh nighty and no bra. 'Now is not the time idiot' He thought to himself. He placed Scully back into her bed and pulled the covers up. He noticed a bruise forming over her eye where she must have hit the counter when the ground popped out at her. He frowned. He wanted nothing more than to make this better. Well damnit. He was going to do what he could. He went out and got to Emily. "Mommy's sleeping. She's not feeling well." Emily's eyes looked distressed. "If she sleeps for awhile Em, she'll get better. But what should we do for dinner?" Emily looked up at him. "You're going to stay?" He nodded down at her. "Until Mommy's all better Em, I'm here." A bright smile took over Emily's face. Apparently he did manage something.

A couple of days later Scully woke up and felt different. Well different than she had in the past couple of days. She heard scurrying feet and the door to her room bolted open. "Mommy! Are you better yet?" Emily shouted into the darkness of the shades pulled close. "Em get back here! We have to let your mom rest. Besides what about the tea?" … Was that Mulder's voice? She glanced up making out two silhouettes. "I think I'm getting there Emily. Mulder are you wearing fairy wings?" Scully had to be imagining this. She had to have spiked a high-grade fever and be in the hospital. Mulder in fairy wings. "Mommy!" Emily tried to run at Scully's bed, but Mulder rushed in front of her picking her up. "Lets let mommy rest a bit more. Yes Scully these are fairy wings." Emily bopped Mulder's nose with her wand. "But Mommy" she whined. "Just let her rest a bit more. We need to be polite hostesses to our fairy friend's right? We can't just leave them." He turned and walked back around and closed the door. "I think I died" Scully mumbled to herself closing her eyes.

She awoke a few hours later, maybe more. It was dark when she opened her eyes. She felt a small figure in front of her and knees touching the back of her knees. Ok. Now there are one too many people in this bed. Scully moved slightly. There was pressure over her shoulder. When she shifted, it shifted as well. "How are you feeling?" Was whispered into her ear. She stiffened for a moment. "Nothings happened. You were shivering again and Emily wanted you and I couldn't keep her out after four days so I gave up and let her but you were shivering and I couldn't find blankets so…" He trailed off. She could feel he was in sweat pants but bear chested. "Mulder….Four days? What happened?" He pecked Scully's cheek. "Just go to bed. I'll explain in the morning. It's been a long four days Scully." He did sound exhausted. She looked down at the small sleeping child in her arms, wearing her princess pjs, holding a new stuffed animal in her arms. She looked so peaceful and so happy in her sleep. She was happy. Scully saw the smile spread across little Emily's face.

In the morning Scully came out to the breakfast table when Emily had began bouncing around on the bed. "Mulder we're hungry!" Emily declared jumping around. "Scully, please don't kill me." Mulder said as she realized she was coming out too. Yes. Her house was a mess but her child was happy, healthy, and been taken care of and that was all that mattered to her at that point. Scully still had no appetite but watched as Mulder busied himself making waffles for himself and Emily. Emily was bouncing around on the chair. She was so happy to have her mom up and moving. "Emily, go wash your hands please, then you can watch Big Bird for a little bit." Smiles spread across Emily's little face. "Ok Mommy!" She said bunching up her blanky and hopping off to the bathroom with the step stool in it. Mulder slid into the chair next to Scully as she let out a sigh.

"Mulder. I- How –I" She shook her head unable to communicate.

"She's a great kid Scully." He said placing his hand over her tiny one.

"Mommy, can I watch Big Bird from my fort?" Emily asked bounding into the room with her blanky in tow.

"Fort?"

"Mulder built me this great fort! We watched movies in it together and then and then and then" Emily went off on a tangent telling Scully just what had been happening the past few days. Emily climbed into her mothers lap and snuggled up against her chest. Mulder plopped the plate down in front of Emily and Scully's spot and put syrup on the waffles he had cut into small pieces. He then sat down with his own plate next to Scully. After breakfast Emily went off to play in her fort.

"So you should probably fill me in" Scully said looking down into the mug of tea Mulder had made for her. Mulder shrugged his shoulders.

"Not much to tell. Sorry Emily didn't go to day care on Friday. Instead, we ended up playing all day and while you both napped I was able to work. You had me worried there for a bit Scully. Last night Emily just started crying and crying and asking for you. I caved and let her go to sleep with you but when we walked in you were shaking so badly. As you can see all your blankets have been tied up in that fort so body heat." Mulder rubbed the back of his head. Scully noticed he had stubble growing and looked exhausted. "I was just planning on staying there until you warmed up and Emily fell asleep but I guess I fell asleep too." Mulder's face redden a

bit.

"No. Thank you Mulder. Emily's very taken with you." Mulder smiled.

A few days passed and things got back to normal. Scully disinfected every inch of her Georgetown home and came back to work. Emily went back to preschool and spoke of nothing but Mulder.

Time passed, like it does. Scully was brought out of her daydream by Emily's laughter as her father bent forward tickling her stomach. He kissed the side of her chubby little cheek.

"Well Maggie. It's time to be going." Scully went and helped her parents with their coats while Emily clung to their legs. "How's work going?" Scully smiled, pecking his cheek.

"It's fine." She knew he hated her situation. He hated that she gave up medicine, gave up her life. She wouldn't bore him with any of the details. Not about Mulder. Not about any of her cases. Someday, maybe he could forgive her or just get over it all and they could talk, but today was not that day.

After they left, Scully gave Emily a bath and put her to bed. She sat down on the sofa and flipped on an old movie. Apparently at some point she'd fallen asleep and was startled awake to find her father sitting in an armchair across from her. "Daddy? I thought you and mom left." He was mouthing something at her. The phone rang. She turned to pick it up. "Hello?"

As she looked back at the chair, he father was gone. "Dana—" Something was wrong. "Mom?" She asked.

"We lost your father." Her world flipped. That couldn't be right. He had just been here.

A few hours later and she'd dropped Emily off at daycare and walked into the office in the basement. "Scully!" Mulder popped up from his chair. "Skinner told me. What are you doing here?" He grabbed her by the shoulder and led her over to the chair sitting her down. She looked exhausted. He was sure by the slight puffiness around her eyes that she'd been up crying all night. His heart broke a little. Well more than a little. Somehow this young lady in front of him had wormed his way under his skin and into his heart, his heart that he thought could hold nothing but of Samantha and his quest to find her. He kneeled down in front of her.

Her lip quivered a bit. "I just. Um. I just had to work." He leaned forward and pulled

her into his embrace. He understood the need to pretend everything was ok, the need to keep going, just as he had done with his sister's disappearance. He and Scully left the building and basement office to drive towards the prison of Luther Lee Bogs, the nut job that had asked to speak to Mulder about the two kids missing from Jackson University, hoping that the five days to find these kids would end happily instead of in tragedy.

The only hiccup in the search was Scully's needed to attend her father's funeral. However, straight after Scully and her family scattered his ashes, she was at the jail with Mulder. Mulder questioned Boggs while Scully sat next to him across the table silently. Boggs struck Scully as creepy. Boggs was desperately trying to deal; to keep himself from being executed. Mulder handled the entire conversation, as Boggs began to tell the two of them what was happening to the missing students. "I tore this off my New York Knicks's t-shirt. This has nothing to do with the kids and you're a fraud."

As Mulder left and Scully packed her things Boggs began to hum the song that had just been playing while scattering her father's ashes asking if Starbuck got the message. She bolted from the room, terrified. Mulder took her shoulder.

"Scully are you ok?" He was worried. He knew Scully shouldn't be here on this case, but her need to keep something consistent and normal in her life overtook those feelings. "Did Boggs say something in there to you?" Mulder was about to turn around and go straight back into the room and clock Boggs for upsetting her.  
Scully's lip quivered.

"No. Um. It's my father." Scully looked down at her feet. Pain shot through Mulder. He wanted her to grieve her loss instead of trying to act tough. He pulled her into a small embrace, touching her hair to his lips.  
"Go back to the motel. Go rest. I'm going to stay here for a couple of hours. Boggs's already has been proven a fraud." Scully nodded as Mulder rubbed her back gently. Maybe Mulder did have a point.

While driving, Scully took notice of her surroundings. Something Boggs had said about his descriptions of the location of the kids being held hostage clicked. She got out of her rental car and began walking. She followed more of what Boggs had said; stone angel, water. She found herself in a warehouse. She poked around for a bit and noticed something shiny on the floor when her flashlight hit it. A charm. She picked it up carefully and had it sent to Mulder. A few hours later a tap on the door of Scully's room was heard. Scully got up and went to answer the door. "I thought you would have been at the scene." Scully shook her head. "The family positively IDed the charm you found."

"Has Boggs confessed yet?" Scully asked, standing up, feeling the need to pace.

"No. It happened to be five hours of Boggs channeling. Drove me nuts. I did ask him to channel Jimi Hendrix for me though." Mulder smiled, trying to lighten the mood. Scully turned and looked at him, looking distressed.

"I lied to the police about how I found that warehouse Mulder. There wasn't any suspicious behavior." Mulder looked stunned.

"Then just how did you find it Scully?" He hoped desperately that he was not about to hear what he knew he was going to hear. He wanted her to say anything but what she was going to say.

"It was as Boggs said it would be."

"I WARNED YOU ABOUT BOGGS!" Mulder yelled at her.

"I just happened to be driving around and I noticed the signs that Boggs had told us." Scully bit back.

"Scully!" Mulder knew he wasn't upset with her but that he was scared for her. He came at her placing his hands on his shoulders looking straight into her eyes. "Boggs could have been setting you up. You could have been killed." His fear finally spoken. Loosing her. "Why did you lie on the police report though?"

Scully sighed, but kept her eyes locked with his. "I thought it would be best, given the situation." Mulder was floored. He let her go.

"You didn't want to say you believed. You'd expect something like that from Spooky Mulder but no. Never from Dana Scully." Mulder was upset. He trusted her so much.

"Mulder I thought you'd be happy that I listened to the extreme possibilities." Scully's lip quivered. The tears threatened to come. Mulder lowered the tone of his voice, sitting on the edge of her bed.

"But why now? Why with Boggs?" Scully just stared at Mulder, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. "Does this have something to do with your father? I mean, I know you'd told me before he never approved of this path, but if you feel any guilt, you should back away." Scully sat down next to Mulder on the bed.

"I love this job Mulder. I want to be here." Mulder took her hand.

"You love your father too." He brought her hand up to his lips. "I don't want to lose you."

He cupped Scully's cheek, using his thumb to wipe away the offending tears. Scully leaned into his touch, lips slightly parted. Mulder bent down and kissed the pink lips in front of him. Scully didn't pull away but kissed back. Mulder had half expected to get smacked upside the head for his move. He deepened the kiss, pushing his tongue into the parted lips of Scully's mouth. His tongue met with hers, fighting. Mulder slid his arm down her body, coming to rest at her hip. Scully moaned into his touch.

Scully pulled at Mulder's lose tie to loosen it further. Her hands moved to make work of his buttons. Sexual tension that had been building had finally reached its point. Scully kicked off her heels as Mulder worked at kicking off his dress shoes. Mulder rolled half of his body on top of Scully's tiny form. Scully was pulling Mulder's shirt from his waist and off his shoulders. Scully felt his muscles under her roaming hands, enjoying the feeling. Mulder put his hand up Scully's skirt pulling at the waistband of her panties. They parted for a moment, breathing heavily, but looking into each other's eyes. Mulder somehow shimmed out of his pants, down to just his boxers and turned his attention to the woman in front of him. Kissing her again, he began to unbutton her own white dress shirt after pulling the hem from her skirt, kissing along her body with each button opened to the new skin. Scully's breath was sharp. Mulder watched her chest rise and fall in the white lace bra. Soon he had made his way down to her skirt and lifted Scully's hips slightly to lift her out of it. In a smooth motion her panties and skirt were on the floor. Mulder moved back to her lips and desperately kissed her. He wanted and needed her. Scully's hand traveled down to his boxers to touch his enclosed cock. He gasped at her touch. "Mulder" she managed to whisper out while moaning. Mulder took that as a go ahead and shed himself of his boxers and entered Scully. Moans echoed each other as he slid himself into her. The tightness of her around him was more than he could handle, but somehow he managed to begin to pump himself.

Moans were the only way they were capable of communication. Soon Mulder noticed Scully's breathing become more labored and knew she was close, as was he. He knew he had to hold out for her. Her body went stiff under his body while she dug her nails into his back. He felt her muscles clamp down around him, making his motions more difficult. It was just what he needed. He felt himself go as well and fell on top of Scully, panting.

When he came back down from his high, he lightly kissed Scully's lips before rolling off of her. Scully lay there, still coming down from her own high. She couldn't believe that had just happened. But she didn't care in that moment. She rolled herself onto Mulder and snuggled in for sleep.

In the middle of the night, Mulder woke up with Scully still sleeping on his chest. He began softly dragging his hands up and down her naked back. He needed to catch Boggs in his lies to save Scully. He would not let Boggs lead her down this path. He sat up all night thinking about what to do about Luther Lee Boggs. An idea clicked and Mulder untangled himself from Scully. He found a piece of paper and pen next to the phone and left Scully a note. He left her room and went to make some phone calls.

Scully woke to find herself alone in her room. She turned towards the lamp, hating herself for what had happened; being used. She was sure he'd stayed afterwards, so when had he snuck out like she wasn't worth it. That was when she noticed a note sitting up at the base of the lamp. 'Came up with a plan. I'll me you at the jail.' Scully knew the note was from Mulder. She also knew that when Mulder's brain went into plan mode, it had to run its course. She got up and showered and dressed and then headed out for the jail. While sitting at one of the tables located outside interrogation rooms, Mulder snuck up behind her and placed a newspaper down with an article about the missing students being found. Scully frowned. "Why didn't the PD call and notify us?"

"It's a fake. I called the newspaper last night and asked them to create one just for us." He smiled. "Hopefully this will catch Boggs making a phone call to whoever he has on the outside."

The guards dropped the fake paper off to Boggs, as they dropped a paper off for him every morning. The waiting game then started. At 10:00am, Boggs was allowed to use the phone, while he was under surveillance from Scully and Mulder. As Boggs made his phone call, a cell phone around them went off. Annoyed Mulder demanded it be turned off.

"Mulder…It's your phone." Scully said staring at Mulder's suit jacket.

"Why don't you believe me? Agent Scully believes me." Boggs taunted Mulder on the other end, staring into the camera; he knew the agents were watching him.

"Small. Thin. Late 20s. Silver gray hair. Skull. Eyes cold." Scully sat watching Mulder talk to Boggs channeling, trying to get information to help to the leads to save those kids. Boggs managed to give a location. As Mulder stood to leave to go with Scully Boggs told Mulder to not go near the white cross because his blood would be spilled.

An hour later, a team broke into a warehouse on the docks. Not bad considering an entire unit of police and FBI had to be mobilized and plan of attack formed. Agents were everywhere, scoping the building out. Mulder stopped to stare at a sheet moving in the wind on a boat at the edge of one of the docks. He thought he saw something. "Federal agent!" He yelled, gun pointed. That triggered something in that sheet and a shot was fired. Scully panicked not being near Mulder. Scully rounded the corner looking for Mulder. She found him. Lying on his back, bleeding. "Officer down" She shouted. She feared for Mulder's life.

Scully rode all the way to the hospital with Mulder. She used the excuse of being his doctor to get into the ER room with him. He struggled to breath, even with the oxygen mask over his face. He looked pale. Scully couldn't take it as they began cutting away Mulder's blood soaked clothes. Someone shouted that Mulder had a threw and threw upper femoral injury. Scully recounted all her medical classes in her mind. Recoverable yes, but that was a major artery to the lower body. Every pump of his heart translated to blood being lost from his body and blood not making it to vital organs, translating to other organs shutting down, trying to keep the vital ones going. Scully felt sick. She turned and sat outside in a doctor's lounge, waiting to get an all clear on the status of Liz Holbrook, which came about an hour later. Seeing as the girl had been recovered at the warehouse was taken to the same hospital, Scully went upstairs to see her. A few hours later, the girl came to, only mild trauma, nothing life threatening physically. An officer began showing her pictures, trying to find out who had taken them. The girl turned at an image that came up in the bunch after about two minutes of looking at different photos.

Scully stood out in the hall waiting to hear about Mulder when the officer approached Scully with a file on Lucas Henry. "Boggs had a partner the last five murders. It's believed to be Lucas Henry. He's currently reliving the car accident he witnessed in which his high school sweetheart was killed and his mother decapitated." Scully was furious. Mulder and her had been tricked; used right along from the start by Boggs.

She got into the car and went straight for the cell of Luther Lee Boggs. The guards knew she was there to raise hell at Boggs, her blue eyes ablaze. "You set us up! You set Mulder up because he wrote the profile that got you caught. If he dies, in four days NO ONE WILL CARE IF I AM THE ONE TO THROW THAT SWITCH AND GAS THE HELL OUT OF YOU!"

Scully turned. The emotions of the days behind her had come to a point. She had needed something to yell at, to blame in a way, and Boggs provided it. Granted she was terrified for Mulder's life. "But you were the one who believed me Dana" Boggs voice smooth as velvet penetrated her yet it was Mulder she was looking at not Boggs.

"No!" She screamed, covering her ears, closing her eyes. Tears were threatening her.

"I know who you want to talk to. Why don't you just go ahead and ask." Boggs was toying with her. Tears spilled over. How could he know about her father? She had questions she needed to hear from her father and would never know the answers to otherwise.

"Please," Scully asked softly, tears running down her face.

"Starbuck," Boggs mumbled after a few moments. "No!" He yelled out. "No one will talk until I get a deal!" He threatened Scully. "I'm not going back." Scully stopped her tears.  
"I don't believe you." Boggs was not toying with her anymore. She wouldn't play his game. "Guard" she yelled out into the jail to be released away from the sliminess of Boggs. Yet Scully was lost without Mulder. How would she try to stop these murders?

The next day she went to talk to a lawyer for the state of North Carolina, trying to get Boggs a deal for life in lew of the death penalty. Naturally this was denied. As much as she wanted to speak to her father, the deadline for saving the boy was drawing ever closer. Mulder had been released from recovery and into the intensive care. Scully went to the hospital to talk to him. She needed his guidance about how to proceed.

Mulder looked like hell. He had been through hell and back but he looked terrible. Oxygen was still being supplied for him, yet his skin was still deathly pale. The beeping of the monitors, which Scully would normally find comforting were driving her mad, as if telling her the clock was ticking down. Mulder turned to look at Scully as she sat there, staring at whatever was ahead of her, not truly looking anywhere in the room. He could tell she had been crying, although she'd done a very good job at covering it up. He had to look at the corner of her eyes to tell she had been. She seemed to just be moving about soullessly. She sighed. "We're running out of time. There's no sign of either the boy or Lucas Henry."

"No matter what, don't believe him." Mulder struggled to breath. This was an effort for him. "He created this to get back at me for putting him on death row. You'd be the next best thing. Don't deal with him. He could be trying to claim you as his last victim." Mulder had to warn her, even if it took all his strength to do so. His voice shuddered as he spoke. He knew Scully would come up with something but she couldn't deal with Boggs. He couldn't let her get sucked in.

Scully slid the fake deal in front of Boggs. "Here it is." She hoped even though it was fake he would give something up. Boggs must have known. He just ran her around in circles. "I knew you were lying," Boggs told her. "Beware of the blue devil," he said to Scully's back as she was leaving. Scully knew it was crazy but she manned a team up and headed to the old Blue Devil Brewery. Lucas Henry was taking the axe into the air when Scully and her team arrived. Shots ran out and she chased Lucas Henry down. He was running across a platform when it gave way and fell out from under him, sending him hurtling down to his death. Scully's only reason for not joining the fall was the blue devil painted behind him. It made her stop and think just as the boards gave way.

Scully went to talk to Boggs. Boggs demanded she be his witness at his execution that night. "You'll get your message from your father just before I die." He told her. Scully didn't know why she kept feeding into him but not this time. She realized she didn't ever need her father's message. Instead she went down and sat by Mulder's side.

Again the next day she was with Mulder. He was much better. They had been able to take him off of the oxygen. He also had his coloring back. He was hooked up to an IV but that was basically it. "I've been thinking about Boggs. If he knew I was your partner he could have learned all this information about me in order to drag me along." She began starting to scientifically reason things away.

"Dana" Mulder used her first name, stopping Scully's rant. "After all you've seen, why don't you believe?"

She sighed and sat down on his hospital bed looking down into her hands. "Because I'm afraid."

With Luther Lee Boggs declared dead, Scully knew she had to talk to Mulder.


	3. Duane Berry Part 1

In the weeks after the Luther Lee Boggs incident, Mulder began coming over every night with Scully to sit and be almost like a family with her and Emily. The chubby well dressed two year old seemed to love Mulder and his presence. Scully loved his presence as well, for more than one reason. However, all good things do come to a screeching halt at times.

Sweaty bodies and sweat soaked sheets. "Oh God Mulder." Scully's breath was raspy as she began to arch her back into Mulder. She began to yell out, only to quiet herself using Mulder's mouth. Mulder groaned into her mouth, spilling himself into her. God did he love her. Yes, he could use that word in his head. Regardless of every ordeal with Samantha, with Scully he felt truly worthy of being loved and he loved her for that. Love wasn't just some word anymore, but a true feeling. Together, they stayed in the sheets, tangled up, with each other drifting off into sleep.

They were awoken by phone calls to each of their phones, asking them to come in. A hostage situation had happened with a former agent. "Mmm. I was hoping to sleep in a bit." Scully mumbled into the sheets after getting off the phone and Mulder himself had hung up. Mulder rolled over towards Scully and planted a kiss on her shoulder. Just then a voice down the hall tuned them back in. "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy." Down the hall. Mulder pulled himself out of bed and towards the shower.

"Sleep a bit then take care of Emily and come out later. I'll get there first. Apparently the word abduction came up from the mental patient, so I'm going to assume that's why they called us." Scully nodded, watching his naked form start the shower. She pulled herself up and searched for the discarded nightie she had been wearing. Finding it on the floor near the foot of the bed, she pulled it over her head, she went out to go get Emily.

Mulder walked into a room filled with other agents who specialized in hostage situations. Mulder felt the awkwardness in the room. It was clear the other agents truly thought Duane Berry was a nut case and would not open their minds to the possibilities out there. He was pushed a phone and told to call Duane. Of course, Duane being an old agent himself already knew the drill. Duane started spatting hostage tactics back at Mulder. Mulder hated being used. As Duane slammed the phone down he looked at the agent in charge. Part of him wished Scully would get there. He needed to be grounded, centered, and she managed to do that for him just by being there. However, he knew he needed help. Picking up his own phone he called Scully. Scully who had been watching the news while trying to feed the fussy Emily answered. "He's a former FBI agent who claims to be a multiple abductee. I need help." Just then everything went dead. Full-blown power outage. Mulder heard shots fired from within the hostage area. With a flash again, phones came back up and Duane was called. "Does anyone need help?" Duane looked around at the hostages. "I guess were going to need a doctor." He sighed into the phone. Mulder had no idea what possessed him to do it but he started donning an EMTs uniform to go in with the paramedic.

Mulder crossed unarmed with the paramedic to Duane's holed up spot. Mulder tried to talk to him, to reason with him. He didn't want anyone else to get hurt. Mulder began to talk to Duane about his abduction experiences. Duane tried to pawn it off with the fact that he had a gun in his face but Mulder kept talking. Duane eventually decided to let the bleeding man on the floor go but only in exchange for Mulder to stay, to which Mulder agreed to. If he didn't, that man on the floor would have died.

Mulder began to talk to Berry about his sister Samantha's experience and what he experienced with it. Mulder's words were making sense to Berry. Slowly, things began to click and Mulder began to fire questions about all the abduction experiences he knew of from the x-files. In a way it seemed to calm Berry down.

Scully went to call Mulder back after doing her own research. "Krycek" Alex said picking up the phone. That was not supposed to be the one on the other line. "Where's Mulder?" Scully asked panic rising in her voice. Krycek sighed. "He traded himself for one of the hostages." Panic took over Scully. "What?! We have to get him out of there now!"

Scully charged down into the field. "I need to speak to Mulder. Now!" Scully managed to calm down and explain herself to the agent in charge. Scully got on the mic to speak into Mulder's ear, discussing Berry's psychotic problems. "Mulder keep him talking and get him to free those people because if you don't, they will shoot." Mulder didn't know how he managed to do it but he got Berry to free the female hostages. Scully was speaking to him the entire time. Berry suddenly became violent again and Mulder convinced him to go lock the door to put him the line of fire. He had to get out of there for Scully. Shots were fired, EMTs rushed forward, Mulder was freed and Scully went rushing into his arms.

The next day Scully had planned to take Emily to her sister's house to spend some quality Auntie Niece time since it was so rare Melissa was in town. She didn't know what to do with herself. Mulder had to tie up loose ends on Duane Berry and she was toddler free for the evening. Post op of Duane Berry a piece of metal had been removed and given to Mulder. Scully flicked on her laptop to try to figure it out. After a few hours of sitting she became restless and went to the store for ice cream. She had noticed strange etching on the piece of metal almost like a barcode. She had no idea what possessed her to take the metal out with her let alone scan it when the clerk wasn't looking. The computer malfunctioned so badly it looked as if the computer was having Armageddon. Scully ran out the store and home. She had to call Mulder. Scully was leaving a message over the thunder for Mulder, terrified of what exactly she had in her hands when she heard a sound unfamiliar with the storm. Berry broke into the apartment while Scully yelled for Mulder.


	4. Duane Berry Part 2

Mulder walked into his apartment. Needing space from Scully after having to set a man up to be shot in front of him, he needed to purge himself of the disgust he had. This was the perfect evening. Gloomy and stormy. He noticed the light blinking on the machine and began to play it. He wasn't listening fully to the message but recognized Scully's voice. It was only when he heard her screams for him to help her did he pay attention. He ran out of the door to Scully's apartment, his badge gaining him access to the scene. Luckily Emily's room hadn't been touched but Scully's room was a mess of shattered glass and blood. He heard pleas outside of the apartment declaring they needed to be let in. Mulder turned and walked out of the hallway realizing it was Scully's mother and sister with Emily on her hip. "You can't go in there. She's not here." Mulder told them. He doubted Emily would remember any of the gruesome details but he didn't want to risk it.

Mulder stepped out into the hall with a couple of the kitchen chairs and began to talk to Scully's mother. Emily stirred in Melissa's arms. "Mommy? Where Mommy?" She asked. It broke Mulder's heart. Emily stuck her arms out to be held by Mulder. Mulder picked her up from Melissa and swayed rubbing the back of Emily's head hushing her. Mulder managed to get Emily back to sleep with this however he questioned what would happen to her tomorrow or the day after or the day after when Scully still didn't show back up into her life. Mrs. Scully took Emily back to her place, while Mulder went into the office to talk to Skinner. To which Skinner promptly booted him out of the office and building. Naturally Mulder was a pro at following directions.

Mulder completely engrossed himself in finding Scully. He happened to find some police shooting video in which he managed to find Scully located in the trunk of a car, gagged and bleeding, in custody of Duane Berry. While listening to footage Mulder had a connection, a light bulb, about where Berry was headed with Scully. Mulder told his eager friend Alex to get his car and he would deal with Skinner but to be ready to drive. He met him in the parking garage, map in hand. After hours of driving, Mulder felt positive he was on the right path. He pulled into a park and began talking to a ranger. It was obvious lack of sleep was getting to him as the stubble began to take over his face and eyes drooping. Mulder got himself into a cart and began to head up the mountain. He had to beat Berry to the top in order to save Scully. However, as darkness set in and Mulder stepped out, he saw a car, Berry rejoicing and an empty trunk. Scully was officially missing.

Mulder drove back down to Mrs. Scully's to deliver the news in person. He needed to hold Emily. He needed to protect her from everything since he'd failed at protecting her mother. When Mrs. Scully opened the door, Mulder heard "Mommy?" from the background. Mrs. Scully could tell Mulder did not show up with good news. He looked ready to cry, his cheeks sunken in, stubble over his face, eyelids drooping. Mrs. Scully took him over to the sofa where he sat down and Emily climbed into his arms. "Where Mommy?" she asked Mulder. A tear trailed down his face.

During the three months Scully was missing, Emily turned three years old. Mulder was there for that event and every evening after painstaking hours dedicated to trying to find Scully to hold Emily until she fell asleep. Emily was still too young to understand what was going on but she was not the happy toddler she had been. However, those few hours when Mulder stopped by, Emily had a bit of bounce back in her step.

Then one cold morning, Mulder got a phone call from Mrs. Scully. Scully had been found. She turned up in an ICU of a hospital. No one could tell where she came from. She was hooked up to every machine possible. The one breathing for her force air down with such a force it shook Scully's petite body. She was so pale but there was no evidence of any blood or cuts. Mulder went down every day to sit when he could. Emily had not been brought around. Mulder would have made sure of that if Mrs. Scully hadn't. The machines keeping her alive looked terrifying even to Mulder so in the mind of a young three year old, he would compare them to the flying monkeys and the wicked witch of the west in the Wizard of Oz. Scully's family was deciding to pull the plug when Scully finally came to.

One evening, Mulder was waiting in his apartment for the men who had done whatever to Scully to extract his revenge. He had been warned by an informant that this would be the night. Lights off, staring into the darkness he waited, gun posed in front of him. A knock at his door pulled him out of his deep concentration. He stood and went to the door. He pulled it opened and noticed what he assumed to be Melissa.

He had never really been introduced officially to Melissa with Scully's disappearance and then suddenly reappearance at the hospital. But he did see her around. She looked a little like Scully. Her hair was more strawberry blonde than red like Scully's. She had the same blue eyes, however, her blues were paler than Scully's. She did have a few of Scully's mannerisms, however Scully was more ridged while Melissa more free. Mulder just stared.

"You can't be here." He told her. That didn't stop Melissa at all. She walked herself straight into Mulder's dark apartment. Melissa looked like she hadn't rested in days, probably since Scully's magical appearance in the hospital. Melissa stared at Mulder. Her message was too important.

"I just came from the hospital, the doctors are saying Dana's weakening. You should come down to the hospital." Melissa could sense that Mulder was in a terrible place. "You need to talk to her, whether or not it brings her back. At least she'll know. And so will you." Melissa shoved past Mulder and stormed out. Melissa deep down blamed Mulder and his work for what was happening to her baby sister. Mulder stared in the dark at the door that had been slammed in his face.

He walked down the hall of the ICU, weary and exhausted. He was looking for signs for the Scullys He did not want to be there with them. He needed to see his Scully alone. His words were for her alone and no one else. He peaked around the door to her room and walked in when he found her alone. The wires were still connected to her skull, making her red hair greasy. She had been pulled from the ventilator but oxygen was still being pumped through a tube in her nose. She was deathly pale. Even her lips began to match her skin.

Mulder took the chair next to her bed. He didn't know how to start. He picked up her hand with the IV running into it. He sighed. "I feel that you believe you're not ready Scully. I don't know if my being here will bring you back, but I'm here." He mumbled. He kissed her hand and placed it back down. "You're my one in a million." He stayed by her side through the night. He had admitted to himself. He loved her. As the sun began to come up, Mulder left the hospital to return to his apartment, knowing it would be destroyed. That didn't matter to him anymore.

He unlocked the door, knowing what he was going to see. Papers were tossed everywhere. Every draw he had had been turned upside down and dumped and left. He shut the door behind him and slid down it. Reaching the floor he placed his hands in his head and began to cry. The emotions that had been building up since her disappearance over took him. The lack of sleep for three months, the fact that he might lose her for good, his best friend, the love of his life, became over bearable. Tears trailed down the side of his and into the palms of his hands. He stayed like that for some time.

Later on that week as he came home from work, still trying to figure out who had taken Scully when he got a phone call. Scully had woken up. Nothing had been done. In fact, her family had decided to let nature take its course and she had woken up. He wasn't going to lose her. That was all that mattered.

A couple of weeks passed and Scully was allowed to come home. Mulder had run in the moment he had received news that Scully had woken up but had stopped coming around and had stopped coming around for Emily. Mulder felt extreme guilt at not being able to protect Scully but also that if she had never followed him on his crusade, she would never have been there in the first place. Scully felt lost. Not only had she missed three precious months of her daughter's life but her personal pillar had crumbled, leaving her alone. She made do and kept herself busy and happy for Emily's sake, but every night come bedtime, she would cry herself to sleep. Mulder had reverted back to the person she had first met in that basement office. She hated it. Being treated as almost less than a colleague.


	5. Chapter 5

A couple of months after Scully's initial return to work, Mulder was being forced to take a leave to use his vacation time. Mulder was sending her off to chase some lead. Scully knew it would prove fruitless and didn't want to go, but she knew she had to. While Mulder spouted out about forced vacation Scully's question came out of the blue. She really wasn't listening to Mulder. She was fed up. "Why don't I have a desk?" If Mulder was going to pretend nothing had ever happened between them, she was going to be insisted upon being treated as colleague, his partner.

Reluctant to leave Emily yet again, she agreed to pack her bags and headed out. While pursuing Mulder's leads she entered into a tattoo parlor. A man with startling green grey eyes and brown hair was having a debate over a tattoo with the artist. The artist asked the new comer Scully's opinion. Scully walked over and looked at the man's tattoo. She was intrigued. "I love the color of the lips. That red is so beautiful." The artist informed Scully it was a technique he discovered in a Soviet prison. Somehow, she wasn't sure how, the man with the tattoo ended up giving his card to her.

That night, while sitting in her hotel room working on prepping the file for a case closed, as there was no x-file to being with, when Mulder called her. After a bit of a snappy conversation, Mulder asked how the case was. "There is no x-file." Mulder wanted to know how Scully managed to be so sure. "You assigned me to do the background check and as always I do what I'm told." Scully threw her response at him. "I have to go." Mulder was curious why she was in such a rush. "What Scully. Do you have a date?" The pause on the end of the line with no answer upsetted Mulder. However, he was the one who had let things end. With Mulder off the line, Scully called Ed to take him up on his dinner offer.

Scully had to confess to Ed that she didn't really date, which was in fact true. Her last date had been with Emily's father back in college. Mulder had never taken her out, just showed up, even though Mulder managed to do sweet things, a date would be nice. After glancing at a picture of Ed with his kids and his face burned out Scully wanted to get away from it all. "That crummy bar you told me about…. Take me there."

Scully felt at ease, for the first time in ages and managed to open up to Ed. Maybe it was the alcohol. "I have this pattern where I do things in a circle." She told him. Noticing his bleed arm again she went to touch it. "If you're so curious, get one of your own." He said, with a cocky grin. Scully felt excited, as if she was being dared. They staggered across the street to the parlor. Scully picked out a tattoo she liked and they informed the artist she wanted the same red Ed had on his tattoo.

She'd never felt more alive and daring in her life. She felt different even if she didn't look different. They went back to Ed's place where things began to get hot. She never would have slept with someone on the first "date" if you could truly even call this a date. Never had she been so reckless, even on the night Emily was convinced. On that night the condom broke, but careful they had tried to be.

She was awoken to a knock on Ed's door as she got up in his shirt to answer the door to be met by two detectives with the local PD. She informed the detectives that Ed was not home but that she was with the FBI. After flashing her badge, she found herself involved, unofficially with the case of the missing neighbor. She borrowed Ed's laptop and connected online to look at the results of the autopsy. The list of chemicals found in the blood made her heart race. Scully picked up the phone and dialed the FBI. She asked for Mulder, however, she refused to go running to him for help. Not after everything that had happened between them. She was going to take care of this matter herself. She hung up the phone just as Ed walked in.

Scully sat Ed down and discussed that she had done some research and that both of them may be very sick. The rye that had been used in the red ink of their tattoos may have been contaminated. She was trying to convince Ed that they were both going down to the hospital to get tested. Ed told Scully just what his new tattoo had made him do. "We will go together." Scully insisted at getting dressed.

Ed's tattoo began taunting him again. He redialed the last number Scully had punched in and asked for Dana Scully. Hearing Mulder pick up the phone Ed lost it and began to attack Scully, beating her senseless. Ed began cutting up the sheets with the unconscious Scully and mistakenly left a pair of scissors in with her while wrapping her up. After being dragged down the stairs, a painful experience as her head hit each step all the way down to the basement. Everything felt fuzzy for her but when the movement stopped she was trying to claw her way out when she felt the scissors. She grabbed them, pointing outward, and as Ed began unwrapping her of the sheets she stabbed at him. She tried to talk him down, into getting help when Ed stuck his arm into the incinerator that Scully was sure she was going to become joined with if she hadn't gotten out. His screams must have echoed through the building as Scully went down and sub come to blackness.

When she woke up Mulder was standing over her. The smell told her brain she was in a hospital, the sounds only confirmed it. Scully had a major concussion and bruises everywhere and cuts on her body, but nothing else. She looked worse from going head first into the ground and door when the attack had begun, causing her face to swell and bruise. Scully could tell just by looking at Mulder that he was more than upset with her. The fact that when she came back to work two weeks later, he congratulated her for making a second appearance in an x-file. She knew she deserved that. It was obvious he'd heard that she'd slept with Ed. Yet, she herself had heard the rumors of Mulder's transgression while she was missing. She wondered if things could ever be the same. She knew she had to try for Emily's sake. Emily had been asking about Mulder. "All of this because I didn't get you a desk?" Mulder finally cracked under the strain. He realized he could have lost Scully all over again and because he had pushed her away and tried to pretend nothing had ever happened between them, when really he wanted nothing more than to continue to protect them. "Not everything is about you Mulder." That cut Mulder down. It became painfully aware that Scully was trying to deal with everything, but he didn't want her to deal, he wanted her to be ok, he wanted to make it ok. "Mulder, would you like to come over for dinner," Mulder's heart skipped a beat. "To see Emily. She misses you." Mulder's heart dropped a bit but he'd use the excuse to be with Scully.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: A little treat for you guys since I work retail and also will be moving and hubby and I are looking like mad for a home. I promise though, I have tons of chapters already written but I may be a bit busy until our move out date to post a bunch, but I shall try to. Thanks for reading!

Mulder had been coming around a bit more. Not only was Emily happy to see him, but he felt Scully reverted back to a little bit of her old self, before she had been taken. He still felt that breaking everything off was his right actions, but it still hurt him.

Pulling into the Arcadia Falls, Mulder and Scully knew how difficult this case would be. After having just split up with each other and now having to pretend to be married. Pretending to go back to how it was without the hurt. After the annoying movers and neighbors left, for which Scully was grateful they were around, the two were left alone. They had declared that they believed that their movers wouldn't be meeting the six o'clock deadline. "All moves must be done by 6." Pat the welcome wagon had said. Luckily for them, Pat decided the entire neighborhood could be neighborly and got them to come and help. Mulder who had put his arm around Scully's shoulders, bringing her into his side, was shoved away when Pat's back was turned to go help the movers. Scully glared at him. Mulder and Scully walked out to see their rocking chair being carried over someone's head. "Wynn Schroder. I'm your next door neighbor. We'll have you moved in by six. Time check!" He yelled. A man behind him looked at his watch. "5:19." Scully thought they were all nuts and looked toward the moving van. A bigger man was holding the one box she didn't want anyone but the professionals to touch. She went rushing over. "Excuse me! I'll get that one." The man looked down and smiled at her. "No no no. It's heavy. I'm-" He never got that far. He accidently swung the box over his shoulder causing it to come crashing to the ground. "I'm so sorry. Please, send me any bills." A woman with dark hair and pearls came to his rescue. "Mike it's ok. Go help Gordy. I'm Cami Schroder. Wynn's wife." She said, helping Scully to pick up the box. "Laura Petrie." Mulder on the other hand was trying to get Wynn to let him place his basketball hoop out. He lost and it was sent to the garage.

Promptly at six, the moving van and neighbors left. "I forgot to carry you over the threshold." Scully was shucking off her lightweight jacket. Instead, a set of gloves was launched at Mulder. Scully flipped open the video camera and began to walk around shooting. "6:01 PM. This was the home of the Kline's. They are the third couple to have gone missing since the place was built in 1999. They were all stable professional persons and it took a relative or worker to notice and report their disappearance. When went to check on, all personal effects had mysteriously vanished. All that remained were perfectly kept homes. When the neighbors were questioned, all had no idea." Mulder choose that moment to walk by Scully, secretly checking out her ass. "Which is insane considering this nutty bunch just loves to be so neighborly." Scully shook her head and kept going. "The local PD, having hit a dead end, turned to the FBI for help. AD Skinner then assigned us the case. It was determined the most fruitful approach would be to go undercover as Rob and Laura Petrie. It will be determined if this planned community has a darker secret such as murdering residents." Mulder walked in front of the camera, smirking at Scully.

"Wanna make that honeymoon video now?" Scully slammed the camcorder shut. "Business Mulder!" She said tossing a pair of gloves to him and putting on a pair herself. This could not go by quick enough for Scully. She just wanted to be out of Mulder's prying eyes and back with her daughter in their Georgetown home and back to planning Emily's birthday and party in two weeks to come. She just hoped she would be home in time, not knowing how long this was going to drag itself out. Mulder jumped up to sit on the counter in the kitchen. "You're not taking this assignment seriously." Scully scolded Mulder. Mulder shook his head. "Yes I am. But admit it. You just want to play house!" The doorbell rang. Scully turned to go and get it desperate to get away from Mulder's intense hazel gaze. "Woman. Get back in here and make me a sandwich." He declared and Scully launched her gloves in Mulder's face. Why did he have to make things more difficult? He had even dressed the part. Preppy. Khaki pants and a polo showing off the muscles of his arms. Scully answered the door to the neighbor who had dropped the box. He'd come over with kitchen dishes. "I'm big Mike. Listen I am so sorry. I don't want you guys to go without dishes and since I only really use one anyways here!" He said, thrusting the box at the beautiful woman in front of him. Yes. Big Mike was a bigger guy, but not bigger in an unattractive way. His smile was catching and his bright blue eyes led you to drop your guard. Scully smiled. "Its ok. You really don't have to." He insisted. He had never meant to drop the box but had been so taken back by her beauty when she approached him. Petite, even in her heels. Red hair. Curvy figure. Mike wished she hadn't been married. Scully took notice of his necklace. "Are you a doctor?" Mike blushed. "No. I'm a vet. If you guys want a dog or a pet, I'd be happy to check it out for you." Mike continued to blush at Scully. "Gee. All this hospitality I'm surprised the Kline's ever left." With that Mike thrust the box into her hands and took off.

"Mulder." Scully announced, walking back in, at this oddity she'd just encountered. "The name is Rob." Mulder declared, standing on a table to get to the fan. He had found something. He was in the process of scraping it off. "It looks like whoever cleaned this place missed a spot." He handed the small evidence bag to Scully. "Does that look like blood to you?" Scully nodded.

That evening, after the neighbors had helped move the Petries in, they convened at the house of the president of the home owners association. Gene was trying to get information about the new couple. Everyone agreed. They were a very nice couple. The ladies stood up to clean up dinner and the Gene decided to talk more freely. "These Petries are they going to play ball?" He asked. Wynn took that moment to speak up. "I'm keeping my eye on them. So far so good." Gene nodded. At that moment Mike decided to open his mouth. He didn't want anything to happen to Laura. "Don't you think, sir… That maybe this time we should tell them?" Gene looked appalled at the idea. Wynn decided to kiss ass. "Mike, we've been through this before. We don't know if we can trust them yet." Mike thought for a moment trying to figure out how to reason with everyone in his head. "It's just, there are so many rules, it might be easier for them to keep up with them if they knew what would happen if they didn't. Besides, it's the neighborly thing to do." Mike stood to go use the rest room. "Gene. I can talk him out of this." Wynn said. He'd grown quiet fond of the gentle giant. "Wynn. He's a weak link. A chain cannot survive with a weak link."

That night, while Mike was watching TV, he turned to look outside. His front light was out. He panicked. He had to get that bulb replaced immediately. He stumbled around looking for the change and ran outside. Forgetting that it would be warm, he stuck his hand in anyways and went to change the bulb as fast as he could. Just as it clicked back into light and he was moving back inside a noise could be heard. Mike just screamed.

The next morning, Wynn was washing Mike's front stoop. "Good morning." Mulder called out, carrying the box of dishes to return to Mike. Wynn turned and sprayed the two of them by mistake. He confessed that Mike had taken off on business and he was helping to take care of the house. Wynn extended an invitation to dinner at his home that night with himself and his wife, which Mulder and Scully gratefully accepted, hoping to get more information out of them. However, he did stop and turn back to Wynn. "Who was it that I could talk to about the basketball hoop?"

Mulder dragged Scully down to Gene's home. Gene sat there flipping through page after page of the bylaws. "Nope. Not allowed." He told Mulder. "Really?" Mulder couldn't believe it. "Slippery slope." He told Mulder. Mulder had his arm around Scully's shoulders. He was milking the husband wife thing as much as he could. Scully on other hand… "I like the décor of your home Gene." Mulder said. "Thank you Rob. I go to Tibet twice a year. I run Peer 9 Imports."

That evening Scully and Mulder sat across from Cami and Wynn. Cami and Wynn had their dumb little quirks and when Mulder attempted to make light of them, Scully had to cover. "So how did the two of you meet?" Oh no. Scully knew what was coming. If she didn't have her mouth full.

"A UFO conference. Laura loves that stuff." He said, smirking. Wynn nodded his head. "It's not me so much, it's Laura. She's into that new age stuff, the crystals and mood rings. You know, when you told me this morning that Big Mike was out of town, you weren't telling me the truth. See we called his office. We're thinking about getting a dog. And we wanted his advice. No number. They didn't know where he was. I was thinking maybe something kinky. Dark underbelly." Scully kicked at Mulder underneath the chair. "This is the American Dream!" Wynn declared. Cami took that moment to interrupt. "I forgot to walk Scruffy." Scully stood up. "Would you like some company?" Cami nodded.

The two began to bond over their walk. "So is this really the American Dream?" Scully asked her, wrapping her arms around her. When the sun went down, it was chilly. Cami shrugged her shoulders. "It's a lot of people that want what's best for their families." Scully nodded. "So just not your dream." Scruffy took that moment to run off and went down into one of the sewer grates. Cami panicked and bent down calling to Scruffy hoping he would come back out. Scully picked her flashlight out of her pocket and began to get on her hands and knees and shine it down. Instead she found something much more disturbing. Mike's necklace. As she was reaching in, Scruffy took that moment to come bounding back up, covered in muck. The same muck that Mulder had found on the fan. Cami and Scully took off back towards Wynn and Cami's home. When Mulder and Scully got back into their home, Scully took that moment to throw Mulder's running stuff at him. "Why am I going running this late Scully?" He asked. Scully began to explain about walking Scruffy that evening and what she saw. He nodded and went to change. When he came back he tossed the evidence bag with the necklace in it to Scully who had just gotten off the phone with the local PD.

That day while Scully drove out to the field office to have everything analyzed, Mulder decided to have some fun to test his own theory. Last night he had told Scully that they were all obsessed with the rules in this neighborhood and that she fit in perfectly. He really didn't mean it all that much, but his frustration over how Scully was treating him began to be too much for him. He went and purchased a tacky pink lawn flamingo and stuck it in the grass. As he walked into the kitchen for get something to drink, he came back and sat on the chair. The flamingo had already gone missing. Mulder was annoyed. As the sun set Mulder pulled his basketball hoop out into the drive and began to play. Cami and Wynn came running out of their home, Cami begging Wynn to get Mulder to stop. "Wanna play horse Wynn?" He asked. Wynn began to try to take the hoop down. "Rob. Help me." Mulder didn't move. "What's the big deal?" Wynn shook his head at Mulder. "You were warned." Just then they heard screams coming from Cami in the next yard. Mulder took off. When he reached Cami, she was staring at their own light, light bulb broken, terrified.

The third night in Arcadia Falls, when Scully came home with the shopping bags full of analysis of the guck in question found, Mulder, who had been, needless to say, very lonely all day, greeted her at the door of the mud room smiling. Scully huffed. She had only recently hung up with Emily and her mother and in four-year-old world, Emily had caught something at day care and was asking for mommy and Mulder. Scully wanted nothing more than to be at home taking care of her own daughter living her own life, not that of Laura Petrie and Mulder's cadence when walking through the door was a reminder she didn't want. She told Mulder just what was found. "Garbage. Because we're on garbage Mulder. This is built on an old land fill." She began huffing up the stairs to the bedroom. Mulder grabbed Scully's arm. Scully stopped and stared at him, finally looking at him for the first time since Mulder left that morning he had left to face Duane Berry. Mulder saw something there and let her go. By the time Mulder had snapped out of it Scully was gone and up the stairs in "their" bedroom. He followed in her wake to find her in the master bathroom splashing water on her flushed face. Mulder came up and put his arms around her waist.

"Mulder. Don't" Scully said shrugging herself out of his grasp. Scully ducked into the closet and shut the door, quickly changing into her pjs, hoping Mulder would take the hint and leave. When she opened the door she stepped right into Mulder's chest. "Please. Don't." She said walking around him as best she could and to the bed. Mulder didn't like this. He hated the silent treatment in general but from the person he loved and best friend, it was unbearable whether or not it was completely called for. He climbed on top of the bed by Scully. Scully had flipped on her side, looking away from Mulder, desperately pretending to be asleep.

"Scully. I- I miss us." Scully shot up, tears running down her face.

"No Mulder. You don't get to miss us. You gave up. Not me." She put her head down in her hands.

"I so want to protect you and Emily. Cancer Man and Krycek spouting shit about hurting you. I thought after you disappeared and then came back that if I didn't come back you'd be safe. No one would touch you again. I didn't want to risk it. But I need to risk it, if you'll let me. Scully, I love you and I love Emily." He had wrapped his arms around her tiny shaking form. She leaned in, protesting against herself and loosing her own battle.

"I miss you," she whispered while sniffling. Mulder kissed the side of her head gently. "I miss you more than you know Dana," he said while turning her chin so that she could face him. He leaned down gently touching her lips. When she did not protest, he deepened the kiss. Her hands found their way to the sides of his shirt. With his thumbs Mulder wiped away the trail of tears on either cheek. He smiled and began to lean in down onto Scully, forcing her to lay back. His hand trailed down along her body, coming to stop at her hip. Scully's hands moved to Mulder's chest and shoved at him a bit, shaking her head in the middle of the kiss. Mulder leaned up away from her body, still half laying over. Mulder looked deep into her eyes before sighing and picking up the pillow on what would be his side of the bed and shucked himself of his khakis and polo, down to his boxers before walking out, stopping to pick up the blanket on the end of the bed. Mulder shut the door behind him.

He had some plotting to do about this case since his pleas with Scully weren't working. He had to do something to prove to her that Emily and her were his one and onlys, that his life had simply stopped without their love and lost all meaning for him. Everyday, it's the same routine; get up, alone, missing Scully. Eat breakfast, alone, missing Scully and a bouncing happy soon to be four year old. Go to work and pretend with the person he loved most, that he would die for, that he wasn't hurting, that what he did was for the best. Go home, at some point, when he ran out of pencils to throw at the ceiling after Scully left, to an empty house to hate himself for giving up what he had. Go to sleep, alone, no happy Emily asking to be tucked in or told alien stories to, no Scully to snuggle up next to or yelling at him for telling Emily alien stories instead of fairy tales. And then he'd wake up after very little sleep to start the routine all anew. In fact, when this X-file crossed his desk, he jumped at it. When they were asked to go under cover, he was over joyed. He hoped that he could get through to Scully. The only thing that being under cover as the Petri's made him realize just how much he missed his girls. Mulder fell into yet another night of uneasy sleep after hours of thinking about his life and what he was going to do to flush this monster out.

Mulder had after the attack on Cami, gone into Wynn and Cami's back yard and felt around with his feet. He felt hollow ground underneath him. He bent down and began to cut away the sod. When he lifted the sod, he found underground tunnels. When he'd gone back to Scully, Scully almost hit him with the fireplace poker. "Someone was in the house Mulder." She breathed out at him, worried. "Someone is watching out for us Scully. The same person that put away my basketball hoop. It might not be such a bad thing."

Scully left early in the morning, probably going to one of the near by field offices and to call Emily. Mulder called up a few favors the moment she was out the door. When Scully returned she found Mulder had called in a tractor to dig up the front yard of the home. Something about a viewing pond. Scully rolled her eyes as she walked past Mulder into the house while he stood their smiling, knowing he was annoying all the neighbors, causing them to have fits of panic. As the workers left and the sun set, Scully realized Mulder hadn't come in. She walked back out, shivering slightly in the night air. "Mulder, aren't you done yet?" She asked rubbing her arms. Mulder had hit gold. He'd dug up some tacky nick knack and asked Scully to get a team out, believing the need to dig deeper to find the truth but that it did lay in their front yard.

As Scully was calling it in, something grabbed her from behind. Startled, Big Mike turned her around. "Shh!" He was ranting and raving, trying to protect Scully, barricading them into the master bedroom. Scully saw that Big Mike had found her gun and while ranting and raving he was waving the gun around wildly. Scully was nervous. She knew how fast this could turn into a situation where she could be shot. Something came at the door and Big Mike locked Scully into the closet. Scully was stuck and in moments blood began spattering in on her from Big Mike's head being bashed into the closet through the slits. Scully was scared senseless. She didn't have her gun and Mulder had run down the street to make a potential arrest.

Helplessness. When the noises stopped, Scully tried desperately to break out. At this point, Mulder was making his way back to the home with Gene. Noticing the door broken into, Mulder locked the other handcuff to the mailbox and ran in. "Scully?...Scully!" He went charging up the stairs following the mucky footprints. "Mulder" a small voice squeaked out, fingers poking their way through the slits of the closet Scully had managed to break.

"Oh god. Scully!" Mulder dashed over and began to push the dresser out of the way. Suddenly the two of them heard Gene screaming from the front yard.

"Damnit." Mulder hissed under his breath and went running only to see that Gene had totally vanished. He spent some time looking high and low then noticed Wynn standing there.

"What happened to him?" Wynn only shook his head and began into the story. After about five minutes, Mulder knew Gene wouldn't be found and went to go finish digging Scully out. This case was closed. In the morning Scully and Mulder got into their mini van and drove the airport. Scully seemed less angry with him but still distant. Maybe he had managed to make a bit of headway.


	7. Chapter 7

About a week after their return from sunny California Arcadia Falls, Emily turned four. In the office Scully slapped a castle down on the desk. "Emily requests your attendance." Mulder knew he was probably only being invited for Emily but he was going to be the best he could. So Friday of that week Mulder went shopping. But what to buy a four year old. Hours he debated yet finally he found it. The morning of the party he put on a pair of jeans and a light blue sweater and headed over to Scully's. He was determined to help in every aspect. Scully opened the door, shocked.

"Mulder." He smiled.

"Here to help," he said stepping into the apartment.

"MULDER" Emily ran up, sparkly princess dress and tiara to indicate she's the birthday girl, holding her arms up. Mulder bent down to pick her up.

Mulder stayed all day and into the evening, doing nothing more than helping Scully in every aspect of Emily's birthday party. At night, when every dish had been placed into the dishwasher and a partied out Emily was tucked into bed, stuffed alien besides her, which she named Mulder, Mulder and Scully sat down. The day had gone so well. It felt natural, nothing forced about it. They began talking, just like the old days. Mulder stood up to go.

"Thanks for coming. It meant the world to us." Scully said letting him out the door. "I'll run by on Monday when I have those autopsy reports finished." Mulder nodded.

Monday morning, Scully was in the elevator in Mulder's building, after having dropped Emily off at day care, with enough cake for her whole class, when someone she hadn't seen before popped in with her and rode with her to Mulder's floor. She could feel his eyes on her, taking her in. Trying to ignore this, Scully stepped off the elevator and began walking to Mulder's door, hoping that the guy was gone. Not so. He followed her, eyes still glued as she stopped to bang on 42's door. He stopped at the door before and fiddled with his keys, pulling his eyes off her to unlock the door. Scully looked at him, hoping that if she hinted that he was creeping her out, maybe he'd stop gawking. He opened the door and stepped in and closed it right as Mulder opened the door of his own place, toothbrush in mouth and white crew neck undershirt on. Mulder stepped back to let Scully in taking the toothbrush out of his mouth.

"So I rode up with some guy on the elevator. I think he lives next door." Scully tried to mention and hint that this guy creped her out as Mulder tossed his toothbrush on the coffee table as he and Scully sat down.

"No cuts at all. Heart removed." Scully said, sprawling the file out in front of them. "Psychic surgery." Scully rolled her eyes. No way was she going to believe this. Not at all. Scully got up and left the file on the table.

"Nope. Not having this conversation." Scully walked out and back towards the elevator. They'd been around in circles all the previous week about these two murders and Mulder's insane psychic surgery theory.

Early the next morning, Scully walked into the basement office to the phone ringing. Rushing to the phone, Scully slipped a bit but grabbed the phone. Mulder was on the line, with a third victim who's heart had been removed without any cuts or trauma to the body. While talking to Mulder, she went back and picked up the offending envelope that had caused her footing to slip. Inside the envelope she pulled out a medal with a heart on it.

"Um, Mulder…I've got to do some research about what I found under your door."

"I'll be back soon Scully." They hung up and Scully booted up the computer to start her research. About an hour later Mulder walked into their office.

"It's a Milagros." Scully went into the explanation of this Spanish medallion.

"Maybe he sent it to you Scully." She shook her red head. "But why?"

"Well Scully, you've got a 9:00am with the coroner tomorrow. I got us the autopsy of the third victim." Mulder didn't want to have to explain to Scully that she was beautiful in every sense and maybe someone, potentially the killer was stalking her. That would just make her nervous about Emily.

Scully was infuriated. "Thanks for making my schedule for me, but I'll be late to that." Little did Mulder know that Emily had a check up that day scheduled at 8:30.

She stormed out of the office to get some peace of mind and ended up stopping at a church, hoping she could be in a more forgiving mood. Sure, Mulder did that because there is a psycho on the lose and they needed to get to the bottom of it before anyone else got hurt. A painting caught her eye by the candles and from behind her, the man that lived next door to Mulder came up to her and started talking. It seemed like he'd been following her; watching her. "I don't want to get to know you." She said to him, leaving, fearing for Emily.

She met Mulder in the morgue the next day. "Mulder you may have been right. The Milagros may have been meant for me." Mulder lifted an eyebrow. "He cornered me yesterday after I left." Mulder place his hand around her arm. Scully shook her head. "It turns out you know him as well." Concern crossed Mulder's face. "He's your next door neighbor. Lets just get this figured out," Scully said leaving towards the locker room to get changed into a pair of scrubs. Right now Scully's concern was for Emily, and as long as Mulder's neighbor didn't mention Emily, Scully would deal. She had her training. She had a gun. She wasn't completely helpless, unlike the victim on her table.

Mulder headed out, hell-bent on discovering more about the writer. If he was following Scully it had to stop. He would not let anyone hurt her or Emily. Mulder cautiously popped the mailboxes of his neighbors, trying to find some information out. He was stopped short of doing much digging when the writer came into the lobby. He and Mulder rode up together making brief small talk. They each went into their respective homes and Mulder launched into investigating and watching, listening for his neighbor, who did nothing but click away on a type writer.

Hours later, Scully stepped off the elevator on Mulder's floor, intent on giving Mulder the autopsy report of the third victim. She didn't know what made her do it but she stopped one door short of Mulder's, stared at it for a moment then knocked. He answered the door. "I thought I should return this," Scully said sticking her hand out with the Milagros in it.

"Why?" Pagette asked, confused as to why Scully would return his little gift. She was beautiful. Tiny with curves in the right places. Her red hair and blue eyes and spunky personality made her perfect for his book. However he was also determined to woo her.

"I can't return the gesture." Scully kept trying to hand the Milagros back to him. A smile crossed Pagette's face.

"You're curious about me." He said slyly. "You have a curious life." Scully shrugged. "How about a cup of coffee?" Scully was right. She was curious about him. How bold he was and why he was interested in her of all people. She didn't consider herself unattractive, but she did think many more women out there were more attractive than her. So why on earth was he into her? What made her so attractive to him?

How he managed to talk her into having coffee with him in his apartment, she had no clue, yet here she was standing around his desk. "How is it you know so much about me?" Scully asked. Straight to the point.

"Ever since I first noticed you with your daughter. I lived in your old building." Pagette said smiling. Horror crossed Scully's face. Just how long had this guy been following her? She was creped out that someone had been following her but this was the first time he'd made any mention of Emily. The mention of Emily was her main concern. Emily was four years old and even if she never spoke to strangers, Scully knew the world was not a safe place, based on everything she had seen and studied in medical school, let alone the x-files.

"And you moved here because…?" She trailed off, encouraging him to finish trying to see what his plans were, to fish out what he wanted, hoping it had nothing to do with Emily.

"To truly write about someone, I need to get into their heads and you are rarely at your own place unless with that little girl, but I did notice you do come here often." Horror and disgust. Yet, on some level, she was truly curious. Pagette handed Scully her cup of coffee. She only brought the cup to her lips then set it down.

"I'm expected next door." She said turning on her heel to leave.

"But!" He said desperately wanting her to stay, to talk with him more. "You haven't finished your coffee." Scully stood rooted.

"Ok. Fine. If you know me so well then why am I standing here when every instinct I have tells me to run?" He smiled at her question.

"Motive is never easy. Please sit," he said gesturing that Scully should sit on the edge of his bed as he lacked chairs. He came and sat next to her on the bed, taking her in while all she could do was stare off into the distance. A noise startled the two of them and there was Mulder, gun drawn entering the room.

"Mulder!" Scully scolded. "What are you doing?!" Mulder looked bewildered.

"Scully are you all right?" Now it was Scully's turn to look bewildered. She was standing there, no injury or blood or anything, just with a cup of coffee in her hand. "Yes" she snapped as he pocketed his gun going back into the main room to Pagette's desk and typewriter, to the novel he'd been working on. Mulder began looking, flinging pages around. "What are you doing?" Mulder stopped at a piece of paper. "Putting him under arrest Scully."

Mulder sat there staring at Pagette, willing him to speak. Scully stepped into the room. "Don't even think about it Mulder. Not without his lawyer." Scully responded to Mulder's gape.

"I don't need one. I'm telling the truth." Mulder tossed the papers in an evidence bag on his lap.

"And this is your confession." Pagette shook his head.

"No. This is my novel." Mulder walked out with Scully.

"You know you're in there Scully." She paused. "I read a chapter."

"How about the one where you and a strange are doing the naked pretzel in a fourth floor apartment." Mulder was upset. No one could do that to Scully. Mulder stormed off as Scully sat in a room, going over the information she had found. One of the officers came in. "He wrote something he wants you to read." He said handing her over the piece paper. This she read was describing the murder of a fourth, the girlfriend of the third victim. She had to find Mulder.

As the sun came up in the graveyard, the police and FBI overtook it. Signs of a struggle over the third victim's grave remained, but nothing viable due to the funeral that had taken place the previous day. Scully went to talk to Mulder, standing by their car when he took off after a younger man in a dark hoodie, tackling him to the ground. "Check the truck!" Mulder yelled over the young offender's shoulder. "I work here!" he screamed. Mulder climbed the back of the truck, into what looked like a place where all dead flowers go, searching. If only this was a search he could lose. He found Maggie, underneath the dead flowers and wreaths. Scully picked up the phone. "Mom, could you take care of Emily for me this weekend. We've got a lead."

Mulder went down the hall of the jail. "Mulder! Why couldn't he have imagined it? Stop making critical judgments with no evidence." Mulder and Scully walked to Pagette's cell. "We are sorry Mr. Pagette. We release you. You are free to go home and finish your book." Scully was confused. What was Mulder up to? He was not telling her something but as his partner, she could only assume he'd fill her in.

Pagette stepped out of the cell and took his novel still in the evidence bag. "Thank you. But I must admit I was wrong about something. In my book I wrote that agent Scully falls in love. She can't fall in love because she's already in love." With that Pagette left. Mulder looked down at Scully while Scully looked away. Mulder looked back ahead of him at nothing in particular. He sighed. If Scully wasn't going to elaborate on what crazy had said, he wasn't going to ask. He was slightly heart broken. He hoped it was him, but he had hurt Scully so deeply that he doubted it could be. "We're going to watch him from my place."

Soon after Pagette's release, Mulder and Scully we're surveying Pagette from Mulder's apartment. "Anything?" Mulder asked towards the vent.

"Nothing." Scully responded, staring at the computer screen. "He's just sitting there staring."

Scully couldn't say how much time had passed, but she dozed on and off on the sofa of Mulder's between watching the screen. They heard the door of Pagette's apartment open and close and Mulder took off down into the basement to stop Pagette. "What are you doing?"

"Destroying my book."

"You mean evidence! What did you write?"

"I'll tell you. She dies" he said smiling. That's when Mulder heard gunfire from his floor echoing down the pipes of the building to the basement where he was standing. Dropping the pages and rushing off, via the stairs, he went back to his place.

Scully was on the floor screaming in pain. This man on top of her had put his hand into her chest cavity and was squeezing her heart. Somehow she managed to unholster her gun and get the safety off, while trying to fight him off of her. She fired a few shots, but it did nothing. The man on top of her wasn't even phased. She thought for sure she was going to die. She tried with one more desperate attempt thinking of Emily to get this guy off of her but everything was starting to go dark. All the while, in the basement of Mulder's building Pagette began to throw pages into the fire, dying.

Mulder kicked opened the door to his apartment to see Scully lying on the floor, soaked in blood. 'Oh god,' Mulder shook with each step he took towards her tiny body. 'Not Scully. Please not Scully,' he mentally begged with whoever or whatever would listen. Not seeing her chest moving, Mulder bent down to her side and took hold of her tiny body. Trying to see just where she was bleeding from. Scully awoke scared. Her brain remembered how to breathe, her heart began pumping again. Scully couldn't help it, tough as she may be, she lost it. Mulder secured her in his arms, while she clung to the chest of his sweater sobbing. She had come so close to losing it all again, losing her baby girl. Mulder sat holding Scully gently rocking, one hand holding the back of her head while he murmured in her ear. Scully slowly unbunched her fists of Mulder's sweater in the front to wrap them around him, digging her nails into his back as if Mulder was her lifeline. They sat like that for sometime, until Scully managed to sob herself to sleep, still using him as an anchor to this world and did not loosen her grip until she drifted off.

Mulder carefully picked her up and took her into his bedroom. Gently he pulled the covers back and set her down on his bed. He went into the bathroom and ran warm water over a washcloth and brought it back with him. He managed to finagled her out of her top and took it into the bathroom to let it soak. He began to dab at her, trying to clean the dry cracked blood off of her. He knew if she hurried off in the morning, Emily might end up seeing the blood. Scully woke with a start again. "Shhh" Mulder whispered at her soothingly. "We need to get you cleaned up." At that mention Scully's eyes began to glaze over with tears, which promptly began making a trail down the sides of her face. Images from the events of earlier played back in Scully's head. Mulder took a few more seconds to finish getting the blood off of Scully then dropped the washcloth on the floor and held her. "Don't leave me." Scully whimpered. Mulder pulled his sweater off as well as kicked off his shoes and climbed in bed clad in his jeans to spoon her. He wrapped his arms around her bra-covered top half pulling her in close to his chest and pulling the covers up. He gently placed kisses on the side of her head, still whispering that everything was ok. It was obvious this had really rattled Scully bad. Scully clung at the arms enveloping her.

Pagette's words plagued Mulder. He couldn't take not knowing anymore. "What did Pagette mean? Who are you already in love with?" The thought was driving him mad. Who had she met? Scully turned in Mulder's arms and looked at him, her eyes piercing his very soul.

"You Mulder. I am still in love with you." Scully glanced down. She knew she had to confess all of this. Maybe the confessions would set her free. Mulder unwrapped one of his arms from Scully's body and tilted her chin up to look at him.

"I love you more than you understand Scully." He took her lips in his, slowly but strongly, his free arm moving to hold the back of Scully's head. He broke the kiss. "I am so sorry for how I handled everything. I just wanted you and Emily to be safe. I can't keep you as safe as I want if I can't be with you. I need you." Mulder pleaded to Scully.

Scully raised her head back up to capture Mulder's lips. She needed him as well. Not just physically, but to be in her life as more than her friend. She couldn't be angry anymore. It took all her strength to just be upset with him. She was tired of fighting it. As their kisses became more needed, Mulder felt Scully's hand travel downward to him. She grabbed a hold of him and he hissed her mouth at the pleasure. It had been so long. He began to harden more under her attention. Mulder unhooked her bra and began playing with her breasts, sucking on one while rubbing the other. "Mulder." Scully moaned into the darkness. He knew she was enjoying herself as was he, but he pulled back. He had to be sure this was what Scully wanted. She whimpered at the loss of contact.  
"Are you sure?" He asked, looking lovingly into her eyes. Scully nodded, trying to catch her breath.

"Mulder, we still have things we need to work on. I need to be able to trust you and trust your relationship judgment, but right now. Fuck me." Mulder lost it. She was right, things needed to be worked on, but tonight, he would do just what she asked of him.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Always super fun getting those hey you've got another follower :D Thank you guys. Hope you continue to read. **

A few weeks after being back in the office, after the night they made up, the two were sitting going over some files to see if there were any other cases in which bright lights and exsanguinations happened. It wasn't going well. It was early in the morning. Scully didn't look well. Scully kept excusing herself from the office. She had woken up sick the past few mornings. She began to assume she had caught something from Emily who had come home a couple of weeks ago with the flu.

She had just emptied her stomach of the few contents it contained this morning. She was sitting on her heels, exhausted. This couldn't be the flu. She flushed the toilet and splashed cold water on her face while swishing some in her mouth. She looked at herself in the mirror, something turning in her mind. She dried up and pulled her phone out of her pocket, staring at the calendar. She stared at the date. This couldn't be right. She was three weeks late. How had she missed this? How could this be? When Emily had been a few days old, Scully was rushed back to the hospital, with extensive blood loss, high fever, vomiting. Complications had arisen from Emily's birth. She was told that do to the complications it was extremely unlikely she would ever become pregnant again. There was less than a 1% chance she would. She had never bothered to use protection with Mulder. She could perform the blood tests on herself to make sure she was STD free, however Mulder had always been honest and said he was free from STDs and protection wasn't necessary. Well she'd be stopping for a few things on her way home tonight.

She walked back into their office to see Mulder killing time trying to think with his time-honored tradition. He was launching number two pencils up at the ceiling, trying to make some kind of design. Mulder looked at Scully as she walked in and he grinned. "Maybe we should call it a day?" Scully nodded.

"Mulder. Do you have plans tonight?" Mulder looked at Scully quizzically. "Do I?" He smirked back.

"Would you like to have dinner with Emily and I tonight? I need to talk to you."

"6:30 ok?" Scully nodded. It was barely 1:00 now. This would give her plenty of time to stop by a drug store on the way home to pick up a pregnancy test and take it in privacy. If it was negative, Scully could make him forget she had asked to talk to him and if it was positive- well she would deal with that later. Mulder stared at her back as she left the office, seeming to be in a daze.

Before Scully made it home, Mulder called her. "Hey there are these crop circles in England and I've got coordinates and times. Let's go. 5:30 flight." Scully shook her head into the phone.

"I'm not going Mulder." Mulder was annoyed. He wanted to whisk Scully off and if he got to squeeze an x-file in than all the better.

"Fine. I'll cancel your ticket."

Back at her Georgetown apartment, she was sitting on the edge of the tub, test in hand. She would love to have another child but she dared to get her hopes up. Less than 1% were slim odds. Her time was up. She turned the stick over and took a deep breath before looking down to read it. Positive…. No this couldn't be right. It was pushing 2:00. She had to run to the hospital to pick up lab work on her autopsy, she decided she would run a blood test on herself to verify.

Scully sat outside the lab, waiting for her results. Being FBI and a doctor, plus calling in a favor, the lab tech pushed her work ahead of nonemergency work. "Scully" the lab tech called. She stepped up and took the paperwork. "Thank you." She said turning to read the results. There was no mistake.

She made her way up to a different level to pick up the other results of the autopsy report. She went to the nurses' station. "I'm Dana Scully with the FBI," she said while flipping her badge. "I am here to pick up some results for a case." The nurse nodded looking for the envelope. She handed it to Scully, while asking her to sign the forms. Scully took the x-rays out and began to look at them in the light. This was not the right view. She looked at the name on the corner of the x-ray. This wasn't the right person. In the corner it said D. Waterston listed next to the patient name. D. Waterston. No. It couldn't be. Scully turned back to the nurses' station. She handed the x-ray back to the nurse. "This isn't the right set. This is for a D. Waterston." The nurse looked at Scully. "I'm so sorry. Things must have gotten switched. I apologize." Scully nodded. Before she could stop herself. "Is the D. Waterston a Dr. Daniel Waterston?" The nurse looked down and began to nod. "Yes. He was brought in and placed in the cardiac care unit yesterday. He's in room 306."

Scully was floored. Another surprise for her day. She went down a couple of floors and made her way to 306. Scully peeked into the room to see his daughter, not much older than Scully and a doctor talking. As the two made their way out of the room, Scully hid a moment and then went in once she no longer had them in her vision. She pulled back the curtain.

Daniel was sleeping. Peacefully. She stared at the familiar contours of his face, the ones Emily had inherited. While taking him in another doctor came into the room. "Excuse me." Scully jumped.

"My name is Dr Dana Scully." The doctor nodded and indicated for her to come out of the room with him. "You said your name was Scully?" Scully nodded at the question, wondering where this was going. A smile took over the doctor's face. "He's mentioned you." Scully shook her head. How could he have mentioned her?

"I'm sorry. You must have me mistaken-" Before she could finish her sentence she was cut off.

"You were a former student of his. He has mentioned you. I need to wake him up soon, you can stay if you'd like." Scully shook her head. She had to get Emily and go grocery shopping. "No. That's ok." She turned and left bolting out of the hospital. Seeing Daniel again had shaken her. She had seen bits and pieces of him in Emily but not Daniel. Daniel never even knew about Emily, Scully had run when he was gone. She was sitting in her car in the parking garage when her cell phone rang. Not even looking at the number, she picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"You came to see him. How could you?" Scully had no idea who the caller was.

"I'm sorry, who is this?" Scully's mind was whirling around.

"Like you don't know." Silence. "It's Margret Waterston."

"Maggie!" Scully was shocked.

"The doctor told my dad you were here and he wants to see you so I'm calling for him." It was clear to Scully that Maggie's voice was strained, that this was taking considerable effort on her part.

"I don't know Maggie." Scully didn't want to cause any more pain for this family. She had caused enough for them without even telling Daniel about Emily.

"Listen, come don't come I don't care. But if you do, this doesn't mean I accept this." The phone slammed down.

Scully found herself back at the hospital. Staring at the sign down the hall indicating room 306. She inhaled deeply and began walking towards the door. Every step felt strange. She walked into his room. Maggie looked up and stormed out of the room. Daniel looked at her as she walked towards his bed. "Hi. How are you feeling?"

"It's no fun when the body doesn't want to play anymore." Daniel quipped.

"How did you happen to be here in DC?" Scully asked. She heard that he had gone back to teaching at the University when he came back from his sabbatical. He shrugged Scully's question off. "It's a long story." Silence overtook the room. Awkward feelings surrounded them. Daniel looked at her, his former student, his former lover. "How's the FBI?" Scully flinched. Why did everyone ask that like she had given everything up? "Trying to remind me what I gave up?" She asked. She knew she couldn't say anything to Emily about Daniel. She had lied and left him a message on his answering machine to be checked by him at a later date, explaining that she hated medicine and the FBI was her new passion. "I know how hard it was for you to walk through that door." Daniel said leaning in, attempting to kiss Scully. Scully stood up. "I shouldn't have come, I just wanted to make sure you were ok." She stood and left. She wasn't going back. She was never going to tell Daniel of Emily. It was easier this way. It was obvious Maggie hated her still, so how would Maggie react if she found out she had a four-year-old niece. No. Emily could never be exposed to those emotions. Scully never regretted having Emily and would never let Emily see that others in the world would more than likely have regretted Emily's birth.

As she was driving to Emily's day care, her phone went off again. She was being summoned to the hospital. She agreed to come in a bit. She picked up her bouncing daughter, so happy to see her mother, giving her a picture she had drawn during the day of herself, Scully, and Mulder, hearts covering the paper. Scully smiled. "Let's go see Gramma." Scully said, picking up Emily in her arms.

After dropping Emily with her mother, she headed back into the hospital to the dreaded 306 room. Daniel and his doctor were arguing about treatments. Scully asked Daniel's doctor to please elaborate. Scully shook her head. "It shouldn't do anything if given in a very quick burst." Maggie looked ready to punch Scully. She stormed off, making sure to run into Scully on the way out. Scully sighed. She and Daniel had tried so hard to hide their relationship from Daniel's family. In fact, Scully and Maggie had been very good friends, being near the same age. That had changed. Daniel must have told his family what was going on while going to work his marriage out with his wife on sabbatical.

"Excuse Maggie." Daniel said. "She's had it rough. After I found out you left, I became very withdrawn from my family. I left. I've been in DC since." Scully gasped. "For how long Daniel?" Daniel looked down into his hands than to Scully. "Five years." That was right when Scully was about to pop with Emily, right as she had secured her job for the FBI and Quantico. She always knew she would be highly sought after, having studied with some of the top doctors in their respected fields. "Daniel… You didn't move here for me did you?" Scully asked, tears leaking out of her eyes. God this was the day from hell. Mulder mad at her, she'd found out she was pregnant and couldn't even tell Mulder, Maggie hated her, and Daniel was confessing just how much he'd loved and missed her. Emotional overload was an understatement. She wondered if he'd been watching her. He had yet to mention Emily.

"I'm sorry, you showed up at a very weird time Daniel." She confessed. "If your x-rays hadn't been in the wrong envelope, I never would have even known you were here."

Daniel looked into her eyes, she was torn and he could tell. She'd always looked torn about doing what was right to please everyone else and what was right to please herself. That was how she had managed to worm her way into her heart. "Dana" he breathed out. "What is it you want?" Scully shook her head. "I want everything I should want at this point in my life, maybe even the life I didn't choose." She'd often wondered how things would have played out had she stayed. Would Daniel have accepted Emily? "Dana" he murmured. She lay her head down on her chest as he slowly began rubbing her head, much like one would of a child. She closed her eyes. Suddenly the monitors began beeping and Daniel went into v-fib. Scully screamed out for a nurse, working to save the father of her child. After what felt like an eternity, the shocking worked and his heart was back on track.

Shaking, she left the hospital and went to collect Emily. That night, she clung to Emily, unsure. She wished Mulder was here, but he wasn't. She didn't even know if he wanted a child, let alone with her. She didn't know if Mulder would forgive her for not going to England with her. Mulder and her had never talked birth control, she wondered if Mulder would forgive her if he thought she was taking something. She was tired. Tired of chasing and she just wanted to be, just for a moment. Well, she was taking the time to be. Holding Emily, rubbing her back and the back of her head, kissing her constantly in her daughter's sleep.

The next morning brought emotions anew and morning sickness anew. She had never felt this sick while pregnant with Emily. Sure, she had occasional morning sickness with Emily, but she never felt constant nausea. Scully would have blamed the stress for the nausea but this had been going on before Daniel's discovery. After feeding Emily and getting her dressed, she called her mother. Scully explained what had happened yesterday, leaving out the fight with Mulder and her pregnancy. Mrs. Scully had known Dana had had an affair and become pregnant. She'd known about Daniel and Dana's decision to never tell him. Scully decided that needed to change. He deserved to know he had a beautiful, happy, and healthy four year old.

"Thanks Mom." She said dropping Emily off again. Mrs. Scully nodded. "Of course Dana." Scully went in to hug her mom. Her mom may never have agreed with what she had done but she had supported her, been there for her, been there for Emily.

Scully made her way back onto the cardiac unit's floor, photo albums in her bag and flowers in her hand, only to be greeted by Maggie. Maggie was upset. "Are you happy?" She screamed at Scully. Scully was confused. She'd managed to get Daniel's heart back on track…Hadn't she?

"I was just going up to see your father." She told Maggie, confused.

"You can't" Maggie spat at her. "He's been in a coma since two minutes after you supposedly saved his life." Maggie was hurt and angry. Maggie's emotions spilled over. "Do you have any idea what kind of hell you've created in our lives?" Scully suddenly knew what she had to do.

"Maggie," she breathed out. "I honestly left so there wouldn't be hell in your lives." Scully felt guilty. She had known what she was doing when she had an affair, known that it could cause pain, yet she was not ready to face it. "Oh shut up and stop being reasonable. I'm sick of it. You left and moved on while we got stuck with the mess you left behind!" Maggie stormed out the doors and Scully turned to leave.

Scully left the hospital for a few hours thinking. She had a lot to think about. She sat at a nearby café. What was she going to do about Daniel? What was she going to do about Mulder? What was she going to do about Emily? What was she going to do about this new baby? When she went back, Maggie had someone spiritual in the room, laying hands over Daniel. When she walked in, Maggie looked at peace with Scully. Scully figured Maggie had been holding that in for years, the hurt and anger. She didn't blame Maggie for her outburst at all. She had gone back to look at Daniel's medical records to see if there was possibly something anyone had missed. The man standing over Daniel spoke. "Quiet frankly, this man is ready to move on, but there is something holding him back." He stepped aside and left the hospital room. Maggie and Scully looked at each other, while Daniel's real cardiologist looked like he thought they were all nuts.

She left the hospital again. There wasn't anything she could do. She did call her mother and ask her to keep Emily through the weekend. She didn't want Emily to see her this upset if Daniel really was going to die. Emily had grown up without a father so far, so why tell her who he was but that he was dead. She didn't want to have to explain the sadness she knew she was going to experience with the loss.

She had a restless night with frightening dream after dream. She awoke to her phone ringing, sweat soaking her hair and t-shirt. Scully picked up the phone expecting the worst. "It's Maggie. You need to come to the hospital right away." That was all that was said.

Scully went down and walked into 306, expecting to see him one last time before he passed away, however, Scully saw Daniel sitting up in bed, looking around normally. Scully was shocked. "I'm going to get well Dana. Then we're going to talk about what we're going to do next." Daniel declared. Scully had made her mind up yesterday when she had been sitting in the sun outside of the café. Maggie's out burst had tuned her in. "Daniel." Scully's voice shook. "I think it's time you took responsibility for the hurt you've caused in your family. You got sick because you can't face the truth. You've been running from it for five years." Tears slid down Scully's face. "Dana," he said, hurt in his voice. "It was all to be with you." Scully shook her head. "You're talking like Maggie!" Scully continued to shake her head.

"I'm not the same person I was Daniel. Goodbye." With that Scully left. Daniel was out of the picture forever.

She sat outside the hospital, pondering everything, tears down her face. She had stopped crying but the sticky wetness still clung. She knew she would need tomorrow to just figure life out and thank goodness Emily wouldn't be around. Something caught her eye and the next thing she knew she was up and chasing it. "Excuse me!" She said turning the person in front of her around. It was Mulder. "Hi." He said. He took in Scully's appearance. She looked like she hadn't sleep since he left. Concern overtook him. Scully saw this on his face. Mulder took Scully to his place since it was closer. It looked liked Scully needed to talk. Instead, she promptly fell asleep on Mulder's sofa.

She woke up at about two that morning. She left a note for Mulder. "We have to talk. My place, 6:30. Scully". She went home to her own place and sat in the shower for what seemed like eternity. She had to talk to Mulder about everything that had happened since Friday.


	9. Chapter 9

A few weeks after being back in the office, after the night they made up, the two were sitting going over some files to see if there were any other cases in which bright lights and exsanguinations happened. It wasn't going well. It was early in the morning. Scully didn't look well. Scully kept excusing herself from the office. She had woken up sick the past few mornings. She began to assume she had caught something from Emily who had come home a couple of weeks ago with the flu.

She had just emptied her stomach of the few contents it contained this morning. She was sitting on her heels, exhausted. This couldn't be the flu. She flushed the toilet and splashed cold water on her face while swishing some in her mouth. She looked at herself in the mirror, something turning in her mind. She dried up and pulled her phone out of her pocket, staring at the calendar. She stared at the date. This couldn't be right. She was three weeks late. How had she missed this? How could this be? When Emily had been a few days old, Scully was rushed back to the hospital, with extensive blood loss, high fever, vomiting. Complications had arisen from Emily's birth. She was told that do to the complications it was extremely unlikely she would ever become pregnant again. There was less than a 1% chance she would. She had never bothered to use protection with Mulder. She could perform the blood tests on herself to make sure she was STD free, however Mulder had always been honest and said he was free from STDs and protection wasn't necessary. Well she'd be stopping for a few things on her way home tonight.

She walked back into their office to see Mulder killing time trying to think with his time-honored tradition. He was launching number two pencils up at the ceiling, trying to make some kind of design. Mulder looked at Scully as she walked in and he grinned. "Maybe we should call it a day?" Scully nodded.

"Mulder. Do you have plans tonight?" Mulder looked at Scully quizzically. "Do I?" He smirked back.

"Would you like to have dinner with Emily and I tonight? I need to talk to you."

"6:30 ok?" Scully nodded. It was barely 1:00 now. This would give her plenty of time to stop by a drug store on the way home to pick up a pregnancy test and take it in privacy. If it was negative, Scully could make him forget she had asked to talk to him and if it was positive- well she would deal with that later. Mulder stared at her back as she left the office, seeming to be in a daze.

Before Scully made it home, Mulder called her. "Hey there are these crop circles in England and I've got coordinates and times. Let's go. 5:30 flight." Scully shook her head into the phone.

"I'm not going Mulder." Mulder was annoyed. He wanted to whisk Scully off and if he got to squeeze an x-file in than all the better.

"Fine. I'll cancel your ticket."

Back at her Georgetown apartment, she was sitting on the edge of the tub, test in hand. She would love to have another child but she dared to get her hopes up. Less than 1% were slim odds. Her time was up. She turned the stick over and took a deep breath before looking down to read it. Positive…. No this couldn't be right. It was pushing 2:00. She had to run to the hospital to pick up lab work on her autopsy, she decided she would run a blood test on herself to verify.

Scully sat outside the lab, waiting for her results. Being FBI and a doctor, plus calling in a favor, the lab tech pushed her work ahead of nonemergency work. "Scully" the lab tech called. She stepped up and took the paperwork. "Thank you." She said turning to read the results. There was no mistake.

She made her way up to a different level to pick up the other results of the autopsy report. She went to the nurses' station. "I'm Dana Scully with the FBI," she said while flipping her badge. "I am here to pick up some results for a case." The nurse nodded looking for the envelope. She handed it to Scully, while asking her to sign the forms. Scully took the x-rays out and began to look at them in the light. This was not the right view. She looked at the name on the corner of the x-ray. This wasn't the right person. In the corner it said D. Waterston listed next to the patient name. D. Waterston. No. It couldn't be. Scully turned back to the nurses' station. She handed the x-ray back to the nurse. "This isn't the right set. This is for a D. Waterston." The nurse looked at Scully. "I'm so sorry. Things must have gotten switched. I apologize." Scully nodded. Before she could stop herself. "Is the D. Waterston a Dr. Daniel Waterston?" The nurse looked down and began to nod. "Yes. He was brought in and placed in the cardiac care unit yesterday. He's in room 306."

Scully was floored. Another surprise for her day. She went down a couple of floors and made her way to 306. Scully peeked into the room to see his daughter, not much older than Scully and a doctor talking. As the two made their way out of the room, Scully hid a moment and then went in once she no longer had them in her vision. She pulled back the curtain.

Daniel was sleeping. Peacefully. She stared at the familiar contours of his face, the ones Emily had inherited. While taking him in another doctor came into the room. "Excuse me." Scully jumped.

"My name is Dr Dana Scully." The doctor nodded and indicated for her to come out of the room with him. "You said your name was Scully?" Scully nodded at the question, wondering where this was going. A smile took over the doctor's face. "He's mentioned you." Scully shook her head. How could he have mentioned her?

"I'm sorry. You must have me mistaken-" Before she could finish her sentence she was cut off.

"You were a former student of his. He has mentioned you. I need to wake him up soon, you can stay if you'd like." Scully shook her head. She had to get Emily and go grocery shopping. "No. That's ok." She turned and left bolting out of the hospital. Seeing Daniel again had shaken her. She had seen bits and pieces of him in Emily but not Daniel. Daniel never even knew about Emily, Scully had run when he was gone. She was sitting in her car in the parking garage when her cell phone rang. Not even looking at the number, she picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"You came to see him. How could you?" Scully had no idea who the caller was.

"I'm sorry, who is this?" Scully's mind was whirling around.

"Like you don't know." Silence. "It's Margret Waterston."

"Maggie!" Scully was shocked.

"The doctor told my dad you were here and he wants to see you so I'm calling for him." It was clear to Scully that Maggie's voice was strained, that this was taking considerable effort on her part.

"I don't know Maggie." Scully didn't want to cause any more pain for this family. She had caused enough for them without even telling Daniel about Emily.

"Listen, come don't come I don't care. But if you do, this doesn't mean I accept this." The phone slammed down.

Scully found herself back at the hospital. Staring at the sign down the hall indicating room 306. She inhaled deeply and began walking towards the door. Every step felt strange. She walked into his room. Maggie looked up and stormed out of the room. Daniel looked at her as she walked towards his bed. "Hi. How are you feeling?"

"It's no fun when the body doesn't want to play anymore." Daniel quipped.

"How did you happen to be here in DC?" Scully asked. She heard that he had gone back to teaching at the University when he came back from his sabbatical. He shrugged Scully's question off. "It's a long story." Silence overtook the room. Awkward feelings surrounded them. Daniel looked at her, his former student, his former lover. "How's the FBI?" Scully flinched. Why did everyone ask that like she had given everything up? "Trying to remind me what I gave up?" She asked. She knew she couldn't say anything to Emily about Daniel. She had lied and left him a message on his answering machine to be checked by him at a later date, explaining that she hated medicine and the FBI was her new passion. "I know how hard it was for you to walk through that door." Daniel said leaning in, attempting to kiss Scully. Scully stood up. "I shouldn't have come, I just wanted to make sure you were ok." She stood and left. She wasn't going back. She was never going to tell Daniel of Emily. It was easier this way. It was obvious Maggie hated her still, so how would Maggie react if she found out she had a four-year-old niece. No. Emily could never be exposed to those emotions. Scully never regretted having Emily and would never let Emily see that others in the world would more than likely have regretted Emily's birth.

As she was driving to Emily's day care, her phone went off again. She was being summoned to the hospital. She agreed to come in a bit. She picked up her bouncing daughter, so happy to see her mother, giving her a picture she had drawn during the day of herself, Scully, and Mulder, hearts covering the paper. Scully smiled. "Let's go see Gramma." Scully said, picking up Emily in her arms.

After dropping Emily with her mother, she headed back into the hospital to the dreaded 306 room. Daniel and his doctor were arguing about treatments. Scully asked Daniel's doctor to please elaborate. Scully shook her head. "It shouldn't do anything if given in a very quick burst." Maggie looked ready to punch Scully. She stormed off, making sure to run into Scully on the way out. Scully sighed. She and Daniel had tried so hard to hide their relationship from Daniel's family. In fact, Scully and Maggie had been very good friends, being near the same age. That had changed. Daniel must have told his family what was going on while going to work his marriage out with his wife on sabbatical.

"Excuse Maggie." Daniel said. "She's had it rough. After I found out you left, I became very withdrawn from my family. I left. I've been in DC since." Scully gasped. "For how long Daniel?" Daniel looked down into his hands than to Scully. "Five years." That was right when Scully was about to pop with Emily, right as she had secured her job for the FBI and Quantico. She always knew she would be highly sought after, having studied with some of the top doctors in their respected fields. "Daniel… You didn't move here for me did you?" Scully asked, tears leaking out of her eyes. God this was the day from hell. Mulder mad at her, she'd found out she was pregnant and couldn't even tell Mulder, Maggie hated her, and Daniel was confessing just how much he'd loved and missed her. Emotional overload was an understatement. She wondered if he'd been watching her. He had yet to mention Emily.

"I'm sorry, you showed up at a very weird time Daniel." She confessed. "If your x-rays hadn't been in the wrong envelope, I never would have even known you were here."

Daniel looked into her eyes, she was torn and he could tell. She'd always looked torn about doing what was right to please everyone else and what was right to please herself. That was how she had managed to worm her way into her heart. "Dana" he breathed out. "What is it you want?" Scully shook her head. "I want everything I should want at this point in my life, maybe even the life I didn't choose." She'd often wondered how things would have played out had she stayed. Would Daniel have accepted Emily? "Dana" he murmured. She lay her head down on her chest as he slowly began rubbing her head, much like one would of a child. She closed her eyes. Suddenly the monitors began beeping and Daniel went into v-fib. Scully screamed out for a nurse, working to save the father of her child. After what felt like an eternity, the shocking worked and his heart was back on track.

Shaking, she left the hospital and went to collect Emily. That night, she clung to Emily, unsure. She wished Mulder was here, but he wasn't. She didn't even know if he wanted a child, let alone with her. She didn't know if Mulder would forgive her for not going to England with her. Mulder and her had never talked birth control, she wondered if Mulder would forgive her if he thought she was taking something. She was tired. Tired of chasing and she just wanted to be, just for a moment. Well, she was taking the time to be. Holding Emily, rubbing her back and the back of her head, kissing her constantly in her daughter's sleep.

The next morning brought emotions anew and morning sickness anew. She had never felt this sick while pregnant with Emily. Sure, she had occasional morning sickness with Emily, but she never felt constant nausea. Scully would have blamed the stress for the nausea but this had been going on before Daniel's discovery. After feeding Emily and getting her dressed, she called her mother. Scully explained what had happened yesterday, leaving out the fight with Mulder and her pregnancy. Mrs. Scully had known Dana had had an affair and become pregnant. She'd known about Daniel and Dana's decision to never tell him. Scully decided that needed to change. He deserved to know he had a beautiful, happy, and healthy four year old.

"Thanks Mom." She said dropping Emily off again. Mrs. Scully nodded. "Of course Dana." Scully went in to hug her mom. Her mom may never have agreed with what she had done but she had supported her, been there for her, been there for Emily.

Scully made her way back onto the cardiac unit's floor, photo albums in her bag and flowers in her hand, only to be greeted by Maggie. Maggie was upset. "Are you happy?" She screamed at Scully. Scully was confused. She'd managed to get Daniel's heart back on track…Hadn't she?

"I was just going up to see your father." She told Maggie, confused.

"You can't" Maggie spat at her. "He's been in a coma since two minutes after you supposedly saved his life." Maggie was hurt and angry. Maggie's emotions spilled over. "Do you have any idea what kind of hell you've created in our lives?" Scully suddenly knew what she had to do.

"Maggie," she breathed out. "I honestly left so there wouldn't be hell in your lives." Scully felt guilty. She had known what she was doing when she had an affair, known that it could cause pain, yet she was not ready to face it. "Oh shut up and stop being reasonable. I'm sick of it. You left and moved on while we got stuck with the mess you left behind!" Maggie stormed out the doors and Scully turned to leave.

Scully left the hospital for a few hours thinking. She had a lot to think about. She sat at a nearby café. What was she going to do about Daniel? What was she going to do about Mulder? What was she going to do about Emily? What was she going to do about this new baby? When she went back, Maggie had someone spiritual in the room, laying hands over Daniel. When she walked in, Maggie looked at peace with Scully. Scully figured Maggie had been holding that in for years, the hurt and anger. She didn't blame Maggie for her outburst at all. She had gone back to look at Daniel's medical records to see if there was possibly something anyone had missed. The man standing over Daniel spoke. "Quiet frankly, this man is ready to move on, but there is something holding him back." He stepped aside and left the hospital room. Maggie and Scully looked at each other, while Daniel's real cardiologist looked like he thought they were all nuts.

She left the hospital again. There wasn't anything she could do. She did call her mother and ask her to keep Emily through the weekend. She didn't want Emily to see her this upset if Daniel really was going to die. Emily had grown up without a father so far, so why tell her who he was but that he was dead. She didn't want to have to explain the sadness she knew she was going to experience with the loss.

She had a restless night with frightening dream after dream. She awoke to her phone ringing, sweat soaking her hair and t-shirt. Scully picked up the phone expecting the worst. "It's Maggie. You need to come to the hospital right away." That was all that was said.

Scully went down and walked into 306, expecting to see him one last time before he passed away, however, Scully saw Daniel sitting up in bed, looking around normally. Scully was shocked. "I'm going to get well Dana. Then we're going to talk about what we're going to do next." Daniel declared. Scully had made her mind up yesterday when she had been sitting in the sun outside of the café. Maggie's out burst had tuned her in. "Daniel." Scully's voice shook. "I think it's time you took responsibility for the hurt you've caused in your family. You got sick because you can't face the truth. You've been running from it for five years." Tears slid down Scully's face. "Dana," he said, hurt in his voice. "It was all to be with you." Scully shook her head. "You're talking like Maggie!" Scully continued to shake her head.

"I'm not the same person I was Daniel. Goodbye." With that Scully left. Daniel was out of the picture forever.

She sat outside the hospital, pondering everything, tears down her face. She had stopped crying but the sticky wetness still clung. She knew she would need tomorrow to just figure life out and thank goodness Emily wouldn't be around. Something caught her eye and the next thing she knew she was up and chasing it. "Excuse me!" She said turning the person in front of her around. It was Mulder. "Hi." He said. He took in Scully's appearance. She looked like she hadn't sleep since he left. Concern overtook him. Scully saw this on his face. Mulder took Scully to his place since it was closer. It looked liked Scully needed to talk. Instead, she promptly fell asleep on Mulder's sofa.

She woke up at about two that morning. She left a note for Mulder. "We have to talk. My place, 6:30. Scully". She went home to her own place and sat in the shower for what seemed like eternity. She had to talk to Mulder about everything that had happened since Friday.

****Publish from here 12/6******

After going home and sleeping a few more hours, Scully went to her mom's. Naturally, first she had to deal with the morning sickness yet again. This was annoying. An hour later, she pulled into her mother's Baltimore home. She went in through the garage and sat down in the kitchen. "Hi Mom." She smiled weakly. Emily practically fell off her chair in a rush to get to Scully. "Mommy!" Scully bent down to pick her daughter up in her arms. Emily was still dressed in her nightgown and her blanket was in tow, as always. They had been watching The Muppets. Emily placed kisses all over her mother's face, then handed her a new picture. "Can you give it to Mulder?" She asked. Scully nodded. "You can give it to him tonight sweetie." Scully, standing up put Emily down. "Go get dressed and I'll come up in a minute to help you." Emily teetered off up the stairs to Scully's old room, which had become Emily's over the years.

Scully sighed and sat down in one of the kitchen chairs at the table. Her mother got up and sat next to her. "Daniel?" She asked her daughter. Scully shook her head. "He's alive and going to live, but I realized when I ran into Maggie that even though I've taken responsibility for our actions, he needs to." Scully shook her head as her mother placed a hand over her own. "Maggie is so angry. I decided to leave. He still doesn't know about Emily, nor will he ever. I made the right decision five years ago." Mrs. Scully nodded.

"Mommy" Came Emily's voice from up the stairs. Scully got up to tend to her daughter. She giggled seeing that Emily was having a bad dressing day. She picked up Emily and placed her on the bed, pulling off the tights she had put on backwards. She bunched the tights up in her hands, feeling the glitter on them and pulled them up on her daughter. She then placed her grey sweater dress over Emily's head. She pulled on Emily's red buckle shoes and buckled them. Emily ran off into the bathroom to brush her hair, Scully right behind her. She carefully placed Emily's red curls into pigtails before going back into the room to pick up and pack up Emily's things.

At 6:30 Mulder tapped the door to the apartment. Emily cracked open the door Scully yelling behind her "Don't you dare Missy!" Emily looked up eyes wide as a smile over took her face recognizing Mulder. "MULDER! Mommy hurry up and unlock the door- its Mulder." Scully shook her head.

"One second Mulder." She shut the door and he heard the chain being undone.

"See Mommy. It was Mulder. No one bad" Emily said tugging at Mulder's pant leg to be picked up.

"It doesn't mean it will always be Mulder." Scully said to Emily as Mulder picked her up. "Mom's right Em. You never know." Emily pouted a bit over the fact that Mulder picked her mom's side. As he stepped in he was hit with yummy smells. He smiled down at Scully who was dressed in a pair of dark jeans and blue sweater.

"Honey I'm home" He cracked to her. Scully shook her head, pulling Emily from him and setting her down. "Go play" she said shooing the dishtowel behind her daughters retreating form. "Come on in."

Scully was nervous. She barely ate anything at dinner and seemed to take extra time cleaning up in the kitchen. Emily had come out with the picture she had made for Mulder earlier that day at Gramma's house. It was like the one Emily had given Scully to hang on the fridge. It consisted of Emily, in between Mulder and Scully, holding hands. Mulder teared up at his gift. He loved this little girl so much. A couple of hours later, Scully was still cleaning the kitchen, nauseas and nervous as hell. Mulder had just put Emily into her My Little Pony footie pjs and tucked her in. When he came out of Emily's room, Scully slid in to kiss her goodnight. Mulder was confused. Scully almost seemed to be avoiding him, yet, she claimed they needed to talk.

He was sitting on the sofa, looking down in between his hands at his feet, when Scully came and sat next to him. He took Scully in. She really did not look well. She still looked exhausted too. He noticed her hands fidgeting, as he turned into her on the sofa. He grabbed her hands and brought them up to his face, placing a kiss on them. "Scully. What's wrong?" Mulder was nervous as hell for the conversation that was about to take place. He thought Scully wanted to break up with him, this time for good. He couldn't lose her; it had been so painful the last time.

Scully had been dreading this all day. She pulled her hands out of Mulder's fidgeting again looking at the floor. "Mulder. When you left for England on Friday, I went down to pick up the x-rays to complete the autopsy report." Mulder nodded. He was well aware that she had mention that as part of her grand plan. "Well." Scully's voice faltered. "When I opened them up I realized they weren't the right ones. They were x-rays of Emily's father." Mulder had to be mishearing her.

"Emily's father?" He stared at Scully. He wished she would look at him. "How- What?" Mulder was incapable to create a sentence.

"I went to switch them back out but got the nurse to tell me where Daniel was. I went in to see him Mulder."

Mulder felt his world tilt. "And?" He choked out, worrying about where this was leading. Was Scully letting Daniel back into Emily's life? Was Scully dumping him and getting back with Daniel?

"Well he was there on the cardiac floor. He was sleeping and I went to leave but then his doctor saw and I told his doctor to forget I was ever there but he was stupid and opened his mouth to Daniel and I had to go back down and we ended up talking. I never intended to go back after that but Daniel summoned me up for medical advice to his cardiologist and we ended up talking and Mulder he asked me what I wanted. Then I wasn't sure. And then he went into cardiac arrest and I mean don't look like that, I got him back on track and went to leave. Oh yeah, Maggie his daughter, she told me off too. Did I mention Maggie's a smidge older than me and we were good friends in college? Anyways I went back to tell him about Emily but he was in a coma and I don't know, I went to look at his records to see if there was something that was missed but there wasn't. Maggie called me back up yesterday morning and Daniel was up and I told him to take responsibility for his life and left." Scully hadn't taken a breath. She took a big one now and sighed. "I told him to forget about me. We weren't ever meant to be. It's you Mulder and always has been you."

Scully tried to gauge Mulder's reaction. Mulder had a bomb dropped on him. He didn't know how to process any of this. He stared at Scully, who during her grand confession turned to look at him finally. She looked ready to cry. Mulder stood up and went for his jacket. He needed time to process everything. Sure she had told him that he was what she wanted but he still fought with himself about her work in the x-files. He knew how much easier her life would be without him, without the x-files. "I think I'd better go Scully." He said swinging on his jacket. Scully stood and rushed at him, tears running down her face. "I'm not mad Scully, I promise I'm not. I just need time to process everything you've told me. It was a lot." He said smiling down at her. He knew he loved her but she'd been with Emily's father all weekend. Sure it was a complete mistake but it still hurt.

Scully looked down. "There's one more thing Mulder." She began playing with the hem of her sweater. "I'm pregnant."


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: so happy that yzerman announced he's playing in the alum game that it's a two chapter kinda day.**

Mulder's world double tilted. Did she just say what he thought she said? He nodded and left, in extreme shock. He must be dreaming. I mean, while tucking Emily in that evening, she called him Daddy and told him she loved him. This was definitely a dream. He couldn't understand.

On his drive back to his apartment he thought. Scully was with Daniel all weekend. How did he feel about that? Well, it was a fluke that she'd ever found Daniel. She had in fact made a point to cut Daniel out of her and Emily's lives before the x-ray mistake. She had told him that she had made the decision in the end to keep Daniel forever cut out of her life and forever out of Emily's. She had realized that Mulder and the x-files was what she wanted. That she didn't regret for one moment giving up her high standing in the medicine community to pursue the FBI. Then she had told him she was pregnant. Was it his? Of course it was his, why would she tell him otherwise? He loved Scully so much. He had dreamed deep down of having a family and having one with Scully, however was he worth it? Was Spooky Mulder, who chased after the little green men, determined to find out what happened to his sister, Samantha, worthy of a family and a normal life? Scully was worth it and so much more. He was still thinking when he unlocked his door and walked in. He sat down thinking of Emily. He loved Emily so much and would love to have been her father in every sense of the word but to have created something so beautiful with Scully. A stupid grin began to spread across his face.

That goofy grin was interrupted by his realization of how he'd left Scully. He'd left her standing there. Without any words. He picked his keys back up off the coffee table and made his way back to her place. He ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. How could he be so stupid? He tried his key at Scully's door but the chain was across the door. He knocked roughly calling her name out. "Scully. Open up!"

He heard someone behind the door. "Go away Mulder." Scully sounded upset. Of course she'd be upset. She'd shared everything with him and he was an idiot and left. "Scully. Please." He begged through the door. He heard her pull the chain and he bolted in.

She was standing there, hair tied up, arms around herself, in light yellow nightie and white silk robe. Her face was splotchy with red trails running down it. She was sniffling. Mulder quickly enveloped her in his arms and began to kiss her. "I'm so sorry I left." He said taking her face in between his hands, placing kisses everywhere. "Is it true?" He asked, moving his hand down to her stomach. She turned away from him. She was so confused. He'd left. He'd left and had said nothing, but less than an hour later he was back here. Mulder came in front of her and placed his hand on her stomach once again. "I didn't imagine what I heard?" Scully stared at him. There was a goofy grin spreading across his face. She shook her head. "You didn't imagine it. I'm pregnant." That goofy grin spread itself even further across his face. He moved in to kiss her yet, she ducked down and went sprinting into the bathroom, door slamming behind her.

Mulder stood in the middle of the living room. He began to walk towards the bathroom and heard Scully becoming sick. After a few moments, the sounds stopped and the toilet flushed but Scully didn't reappear. Mulder softly tapped the door before opening it. Scully was huddled up on the floor, feet underneath her body, nose running, shaking. She was leaning against the cabinet, exhaustion wracking her body. Mulder squatted down in front of her, wiping the sweat away from her hairline. Scully groaned. She was pretty sure this kid was trying to kill her. At any moment of the day her stomach acted as if the exorcist was happening, even though it was mostly in the mornings.

Mulder looked at Scully on the floor and shook his head. How he wished he could experience the bad things about pregnancy for her. He just wanted her to get fat and be happy and pop the kid out. Only the positives. Yet, he knew with positives and happy results some negatives must be there. He picked her up and walked with her in his arms to the bedroom, what he hoped would become their bedroom. He placed her gently down on the bed, pulling the covers over her tiny body, sitting himself next to her on the bed. He tried to picture her later on in her pregnancy. He thought for sure she'd be one of those with the basketball bellies. He smiled at this thought; the thought that within that basketball belly would be his and Scully's child.

Emily's crying disturbed his thoughts. Scully went to try to move but Mulder hugged her back down. "But Emily…" She mumbled. She was so exhausted. The emotions of the past few days on top of just hormonal emotions were taking their toll on her. Emily with all of her energy was draining on her as well. Mulder shushed Scully and went to deal with Emily. Scully wondered what it was this night that had woken her up.

Mulder walked into Emily's room, reminded of the first time he'd met her. She was crying then too. Little differences had taken place in her room, however, nothing drastic. The most drastic change was the baby gate being lifted when Emily was old enough to not get into trouble as she had as a two year old. He smirked to himself as he remembered asking Scully why she used the baby gate. Her response was that Emily liked to get up at random times to play and this limited her playing into the safety of her child proofed room. Mulder sat down on the floor to get at eye level with Emily in her low bed.

"What's wrong Em?" He asked her. Emily looked at Mulder. She sniffled and gasped.

"I had a bad dream." Scully had come down the hallway and into Emily's room. Emily saw her mom and lifted her arms for her. Scully bent down and scooped her up and went to the rocker and set Emily in her lap. Mulder looked at the picture created in front of him. Scully was rubbing Emily's head, brushing her hair behind her ear as Emily stuck her thumb in her mouth. Emily only did this in times of extreme exhaustion. She leaned in against her mother's chest and began to close her eyes as the rocking motion soothed her. Soon Scully's eyes began to close. Mulder had been sitting on the floor looking on this moment when Scully stopped rocking. He carefully picked Emily up, kissing her forehead and laying her back into bed. "I love you Em." He whispered. He then went back to Scully. He placed a gentle kiss on her cheek. "Mulder?" He took Scully's hands.

"Back to bed." Scully let Mulder lead her back to the bedroom, helping her lay down amongst the pillows. "Stay." Scully mumbled into the darkness after Mulder had covered her up. He'd been leaning against the doorframe, taking in his new life. He kicked off his shoes, pulled off his sweater down to his white t-shirt serving as his undershirt then sliding out of his jeans down to his boxers. He slid in next to Scully and fell asleep, holding her close to him. Their lives were both about to change, but Mulder knew it was for the better.


	11. Chapter 11

In the next couple of weeks, Mulder went to the doctors with Scully and had all but moved in with Emily and Scully. He'd kept the caseloads light, not wanting to strain Scully. They hadn't told anyone at Scully's request. Not even little Emily. There was too much at risk. Scully had told Mulder what had happened to her after Emily's birth. Scully was nervous she was going to lose the baby and didn't want anyone to get excited to then have to hand out bad news.

Mulder and Scully had left the office early that day, taking Emily out of day care early for the day as well to spend time together as a family. They had taken Emily to Build-A-Bear, which, in the eyes of any four year old, was the happiest place on earth. Scully was now resting on the sofa while Emily introduced her new bear to all her other stuffed animals in her room. Mulder, like Mulder, had taken his laptop out to work. After dinner Mulder went back to work, while Scully bathed Emily and put her to bed. After Emily had run off, naked, with the towel, Scully paused and saw herself in the mirror. Not that she was heavy nor was she super skinny, but if you knew Scully, it looked like she had put on a few pounds. She smiled at that thought before running out the door after Emily. She was already on Mulder's lap, dripping as he worked on drying her off.

"Come here trouble." Scully said reaching out for Emily. She took her out of Mulder's arms and went into Emily's bedroom with her to finish getting her ready for bed. Mulder came in to tuck Emily into bed with Scully and then it was lights out for the happy toddler, who still clung to the stuffed alien Mulder had given her for her birthday.

Scully, exhausted, followed suit, getting ready for bed, while Mulder took care of a few last minute things on his laptop. Not long after he was in bed with Scully, holding her protectively, rubbing his hand over her stomach, drifting off into sleep.

That was when their phones went off. Skinner needed their help. Scully and Mulder showed up at a house at Skinner's request. Skinner had been protecting a witness when he had died under questionable circumstances while Skinner was in the house, which was secured. Mulder began to look around instantly, Scully on the other hand was still trying to wake up. The sun had barely been out when she had dropped Emily off at her mother's house. "Scully would you like to follow Mulder and I?" Skinner questioned her, snapping her out of her trance. Up the stairs she went following the two men in front of her to where the body was found. Skinner handed Scully the crime scene photos and Scully's stomach flopped. She didn't mind the gruesome, however combined with morning sickness, it wasn't working. Scully left to take off to the coroner's office to perform the autopsy, stopping to empty her stomach along the way, while Mulder would catch a ride with Skinner, and stayed to look around. In a glass filled with bloody water, Mulder discovered a bug in it.

Mulder accompanied Skinner down to the cigarette company, which his witness worked for to speak with the board. Mulder sat next to Skinner, drinking in the information, however worried about Scully. Before the board called the interrogation to a close, Mulder slid an evidence bag with the bug in it across the table. "What is it?"

"It's a tobacco beetle. They're every where around here."

Mulder and Skinner entered the autopsy room. "Hypoxemia. The inability to pass oxygen." Scully informed them as Mulder came around to be by her side, ignoring the open chest cavity.

"He choked to death?" Skinner said raising an eyebrow. "But there were zero signs of a struggle."

Mulder had been forming a theory in his mind since sliding that beetle across the table to one of the tobacco board execs. "How about insects Scully? Did you find any traces in the body of any insects?"

Now it was Scully and Skinner's turns to raise eyebrows. "Killer bugs?" Skinner choked out. "You want me to report killer bugs?" Mulder shrugged his shoulders.

"Given the ones reaction I'd say it is worth a look into."

That night Mulder snuck into Scully's room. They had to be very careful about their relationship. Scully answered the door describing North Carolina to Emily. "Well Emily, its warm down here. Tell me what you did in school today." Mulder began shucking his suit, down to his boxers, crawling into bed, Scully soon following. It was pushing 6:00am when their phones went off yet again. New victim located.

Skinner was already at the scene making sure it was secure when Scully and Mulder walked in. Mulder was worrying over Scully. This case was proving difficult for her. Not only being away from Emily, but she was constantly having trouble keeping anything down. Scully bent down to look at the body. Seeing as there was no flying involved, the scene was just as it had been found, save crime scene photographers and numbers next to potential evidence.

Skinner lifted the sheet covering the victim to reveal to Scully much the same of the last victim. It looked as if acid had eaten away around the mouth. "I believe they both died in the same manner." Scully announced standing up.

Mulder was on the floor chasing down the bugs. He wanted this to be analyzed for him. "Mulder could be on to something. It could be a bug bacteria which means there could be other victims in this building." They looked at each other. The door-to-door game was going to start and make for a long game.

Mulder took the man next door to the victim. "I knew his voice. He yelled a lot… Said I smoked too much." He said lighting up.

"You're name?"

"Darrell Weaver."  
"Mr. Weaver did you happen to hear or see anything unusual last night?"  
"Well the little Korean guy dressed up as wonder woman again. My mind is drawing a complete blank." Mulder handed the smoker his card. He needed to get out of the room. The smoke was making it hard for him to breath. Mulder ran into Scully and Skinner in the hallway. Mulder had an idea he needed to follow and Scully had her victim on the way to the morgue.

Mulder approached Voss's house, the tobacco exec who seemed startled over the beetle Mulder had shown him. Mulder had questions he needed to ask. Naturally Voss was less than forthcoming about what he knew. Mulder left, sensing the bugs he found had something to do with this entire case.

Scully had called in a favor and had a epidemiologist come in to analyze the tobacco beetles Mulder had collected at the new scene and the one found at the other scene. Skinner and Scully stood around the woman who was looking into the microscope. "I have never seen anything like this!" The woman proceeded to inform the pair that tobacco researchers had been pouring money into cigarettes to make super tobacco. "In theory a super bug could have been formed as well?" Scully questioned. The silence in the room was answer enough for her.

Scully went down into the locker room to change into scrubs. She needed answers and hoped they could be found on the body lying on the slab. She was having trouble standing today. Dizziness swept over her yet again when she stood. She sat back down on the bench. She knew she had to get started. Mulder would need these answers as well. The sooner she could provide them, the sooner Mulder's brain would tick and the sooner she would be able to go home and go see her doctor. Feeling sick all the time was not going to cut it. She stood up, breathing deeply, making her way into the morgue to begin slicing and dicing. When she got to the lungs she made a startling discovery. She called Skinner down and left Mulder a voicemail.

Skinner looked over Scully's shoulders at the gross moving little worms that filled the lungs of the victim. "Well I guess that explains where the beetles came from," Skinner said, thoroughly disgusted as he watched them squirm around. Mulder came through into the room. He couldn't lie, seeing Scully in scrubs turned him on. There was something sexy about her in them, not that she wasn't always, but he did so rarely get to see her in scrubs. That was probably why he felt the same way about her when she put jeans on. The scrubs did play to the naughty fantasies though. Mulder wasn't feeling well though. A heavy pressure had been building in his chest all day. He must have caught a cold from the weather changes of DC to North Carolina. Mulder sat down and began coughing. Scully rushed over and took his hand to reveal red sticky blood on it.

"We have to get you to the hospital."

A few hours later, after other doctors had conferred, Mulder was unconscious in surgery having his lungs suctioned. Scully was observing the procedure. She noticed Skinner standing outside the OR and went to talk to him.

"For every one larvae we find there could be a dozen eggs in his tissue. He inhaled them. They will hatch, it's a matter of when." Skinner couldn't let this happen. Skinner left the hospital and went straight to a judge. He believed he had enough evidence with his dying agent to get a search warrant and subpoena the cigarette company.

Voss was sitting there, essentially waiting for Skinner to come in with his team. "We were trying to engineer a safer cigarette," Voss admitted to Skinner. "The first victim was monitoring our test group. That's how he caught it. Three out of our four test subjects died as well."

"Who was the fourth." Skinner hoped he wasn't about to say what he did.

Skinner kicked down the door of Darrell Weaver's rented motel room. He had to find him before it was too late for Mulder. Unfortunately, the motel room had been abandoned by Weaver and he had left a new victim in his wake. He still needed to get his information to Scully. Maybe she could find a way to treat Mulder without Weaver.

Scully walked into Mulder's hospital room, exhaustion in her movement. She had to keep going though. She had to find a treatment for Mulder. She looked at him. He appeared to be sleeping so she picked up his hand after picking at the blanket covering him. She felt so guilty. "Must be bad." Mulder was trying to keep it light. "How do you feel?" She asked him.

"Like my lungs have been dust bustered." Mulder coughed at Scully. He realized it was getting more difficult to breath but didn't want to concern Scully.

"We're looking for someone who might be able to help us." Scully told him, still clutching his hand. Mulder looked at her and tried to say something, but all he could do was try to inhale. He found he couldn't. "Doctor" Scully screamed down the hallway as the machines Mulder was hooked up to began beeping. "He needs O2 and get ready to call a code." As they slipped the mask on Mulder, Scully noticed a tobacco beetle by Mulder's nose. No. It couldn't be. Mulder just stared at Scully, desperately trying to breath. He had to tell her to leave this case. He couldn't let her put herself or their baby at risk but he couldn't. Every time he tried to inhale nothing happened. He felt everything around him getting fuzzy.

Scully and Mulder's doctor managed to get him stable. "We have to go back in and this time we're going to have to crack the chest." Scully's mouth dropped. Was this doctor really saying that?

"He's too weak to have his chest cracked. He'd die on the table." Scully felt bile rising in the back of her throat. She couldn't do a second child on her own, without a father. This was supposed to be different. The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "I think for the time being we just need to wait."

"Wait or not, sooner or later, this will probably kill him." The doctor walked off leaving Scully alone with this news. Well his bedside manner sucked, but of course, everyone believed them to be work partners and nothing more. Scully gathered her nerves and called Skinner.

Skinner was desperately out there in North Carolina, still trying to find Weaver. He went to Voss's home, where his wife informed him that she had been trying to call Voss at work but was unable to get a hold of him. Skinner took off for the cigarette company. Voss was sitting on the floor, bleeding, when Skinner came in gun drawn looking for Weaver. "He took the cigarettes," Voss shouted down the hall at Skinner.

"Stop or I'll shoot!" Skinner declared as Weaver attempted to make a break. Unfortunately, Weaver did not take Skinner at his word.

Weaver was rolled in on gurney and Scully was waiting. She needed to start blood work to help Mulder. She was getting Weaver prepped for a blood panel when she looked down at Weaver's hands. His fingernails were grossly yellow, indicating heavy nicotine in his system. A light bulb went off in Scully's head. She ran into Mulder's room and demanded, for lack of better definition, 20 milligrams of liquid nicotine.

Scully was able to take Mulder home a few days later. They would have to drive however; his lungs were still too weak for air travel and would be for at least another couple of months. She dropped him off at his own place. She knew he would need silence and because he'd been smoking in order to help clear his lungs, she couldn't let him be around Emily. After dropping Mulder off, Scully went to pick up Emily from day care. Emily was so happy to see her mom. She did wonder where Mulder was; they had begun to pick her up together and this was rare. Scully took a couple of days off herself. She and Emily just hung around the apartment together. Emily was thrilled to not have to go to day care.

A week later, Scully was running late. Emily had put up a fight about having to go back to day care. She had literally thrown her shoes across the apartment. Scully, having to deal with another bout of morning sickness, only figured that this was going to be a long day. She had gone into work the day before, only for a half day to start reports about North Carolina. She did finally manage to get out the door though. When she got off on the basement floor she noticed a light on in her shared office. She smiled. Mulder was back. She picked up her pace and opened the door. "Hi." She said smiling shyly at him. He looked up from the computer in the back room of the office and smiled at her putting down what he was working on. Scully bounced on her feet. "How are you feeling?"

"Been through worse." He squeaked out. He still didn't have full use of his chest, nor much ability to speak, but he needed to see Scully. Scully approached him and ran her hand through his hair.


	12. Chapter 12

Scully was being to show. Mulder loved it. He couldn't keep his hands off of her. Her carrying his child made her all the more attractive to him. He'd had his lungs cleared by the doctors and thrown away the cigarettes. He was able to get back to his family and he had taken full advantage of it, spending nearly every evening and morning with them. He would go back to his place only a few times a week to feed his fish and pick up new clothing and his mail then head straight back over.

After dropping Emily off at day care, Mulder headed back to Scully's place to pick her up. She had been hit with a bout of morning sickness that incapacitated her that morning. They were going to drop Emily off together before heading off to Scully's appointment but life likes to throw us a few curve balls every now and then. As Mulder entered back into the apartment, he found Scully putting the finishing touches together. She was intentionally wearing her clothing looser and just passing by, one would only assume she'd eaten all of Emily's Halloween candy and refused to go to the gym for a month. His phone rang startling himself and Scully. "Mulder." He said picking it up. "We'll get out there as soon as we can." He said after a few moments of listening to the person on the other line. Scully looked at him. "Aliens like to dig up graves now." He said placing a kiss on her forehead.

"You can go right away if you want Mulder. You'd don't have to be there if you don't want to." Mulder placed his lips on her to shut her up.

"Today's the big day though. I want to see our child for the first time with you Plus, I'll know when to shove the pills they claim they will be giving you for your morning sickness down your throat." He said cracking a grin. His face did become serious. "I've got to make a few travel plans and you will have to call your mom for Emily. We'll only be gone a couple of days this time." Mulder walked to the laptop and booted it up while Scully went into Emily's room with her cell phone.

An hour later, Scully was sitting back on the exam table, stomach exposed having the cold gel rubbed over it while watching the screen. Mulder was there next to her, eyes glued. "There" her doctor said snapping a picture. Scully looked up at Mulder. "I'll give you two a moment, then you can get going. I'll have it printed for you at the front desk, unless you'd like me to tell you the sex." Scully shook her head. "No. I want to be surprised again." The doctor walked out of the room and Mulder took Scully's hand in his as she went back and forth from looking up at Mulder to the image in front of her. Mulder looked down at her, while pushing Scully's hair out of her face. Scully stopped to focus on Mulder. Both of them had tears in their eyes. Pure happiness, only to be disrupted by work. Mulder bent down and kissed Scully slowly and passionately. Twelve weeks. Who would have thought everything would be like this in twelve weeks? As Mulder kissed Scully, Scully's hand traveled to behind his neck. They pulled apart, knowing they had to be off and running. They needed to fill Scully's script and drop Emily's stuff at her mom's before getting to the airport for their flight.

Scully followed Mulder out into the cemetery umbrella covering her head. She was not ready for what she was about to see. A little girl's grave had been desecrated. Mulder was talking to a local field agent. "This isn't aliens." He told the local.

"How do you know?" The local was mad. He'd actually done research and for this guy to come in and act like it wasn't plausibly.

"I've seen this before. When I worked violent crimes." Mulder steered Scully back to the car. Scully was not handling this well. He probably should have prepared her for what it was they were going to be seeing. In the car Scully finally asked how he was able to be so calm about the matter. "I'd prepared myself before coming, knowing this was probably what we'd find. I'm sorry. I should have prepped you." Scully stared. "Then why did we come here?" Mulder flashed two football tickets in front of Scully, knowing Scully was a fan as was her entire family. Before her father passed away, Scully had told Mulder that everyone, all the cousins and kids and her parents and aunts and uncles would have a huge football game on Thanksgiving instead of watching it on TV.

Unfortunately, football was not to be in the plan. Mulder and Scully were called back into the local field office. "More graves." The agent from the cemetery told Mulder.

"You need to put something out." He was fighting with the local agent. He finally had gotten through to him and went out to talk to Scully. He regretted dragging her out here to deal with this now it was going to be prolonged. "Scully," he said attentively. "I've got to cancel our flight out for tomorrow. It looks like we do have work to do here."

The two sat down to start building a profile, believing that this guy desecrating the graves would escalate into killing. If the theory and the patterns with death fetishes held true, time was running out for them. It wouldn't be long until he killed.

Unfortunately, Mulder proved himself right again. In the freezing cold they were called out to a crime scene. It seemed to be they were always calling them out to scenes just as they were in bed together. The scene was icy and cold, fitting for someone with a death fetish. The blood from the body was still pooling on the sheet, the red growing. Mulder went to look but Scully couldn't bring herself to do it. She would deal with it in the morgue, not here on the street.

In the morgue, Scully still shook as she walked to the body on the slab in front of her. Her skin had been ripped of her face. She took several deep breaths, forcing the bile back down. No this wasn't morning sickness; this was disgust with what humans could do to one another. Scully rushed through her examination, trying to keep it down to what would need to be done, nothing extra. Once that was finished she bolted to the locker, getting sick and fighting back tears. Once she managed to calm down she headed back to the hotel room to boot up her laptop to complete the written report. Words detached her from the case that she could manage.

All the while Mulder was down at the local PD running line-ups by the woman who had IDed the young body in Scully's morgue. Mulder was still doing his own investigation when the local field agent contacted him with the potential subject. He called Scully and together they went down to come face to face with Donnie. However, Donnie was in the next cell, not being questioned by the agents.

Donnie had always had a fixation with red. He didn't know what he loved about it exactly but when he saw Scully, he was taken. Red lips. Red hair. Scully felt his eyes pierce down into. It unnerved her. She shook the feeling and walked away, Mulder following her. "I think I'd be of better use if I go back to Washington with the body." Mulder looked down at Scully. He knew she was barely holding it together and he never figured this case would have panned out. He nodded. She needed to get out of this environment. Donnie approached the man in the cell next to him. "What were they asking you?" The man approached the bars to face Donnie. "Were they FBI agents?" He nodded. "What were they're names? The younger ones."

"Fox Mulder and Dana Scully."

"Ok Donnie, you're free to go. She's dropped the charges."

Scully was down at the FBI's lab in Minneapolis. She was greeted by one of the techs. "I've got good news for you. We've got a print." Scully called Mulder after running it through the system. In less than an hour Mulder with a task force was kicking down the door of Donnie's home. Although Donnie wasn't there, Mulder's stomach went in on it's self when he saw the funeral home Donnie had set up around his bed and the fingers of his victims in the freezer mixed in with his peas. "Put an APB out on him."

Scully had to run over some evidence to Mulder before taking off for DC. She didn't think anything of the lights following her. Someone must be going the same way. The car behind her put it's brights on and rammed her car hard. Everything went black.

Mulder paced up and down in the office. Her flight was at 8:00 and it was 6:30. She should have already been there and left. He was worried. What could have happened to her? That was when a secretary stuck her head in the door. "Um, we've found agent Scully's car." Mulder's legs almost went out from under him. He somehow managed to steady himself as he grabbed his coat and took off at top speeds to the crime scene. Seeing her car hit the way it was, he felt bile creep up in his throat. He pushed it back down. He had to find Scully. He had to find her before it was too late for her.

Back at the office, Mulder bounced ideas off the local agents. He had to find her. Time was running out. That was when one of the local's agents became a smart ass out of exhaustion. "I would think it'd be his mom cuz he's so pissed off at her according to your profile." The light bulb clicked for Mulder. "Find out where his mother lives. Now!" Mulder had been ready to punch the smart ass agent but at that point he could have kissed him. He couldn't make the connection himself until someone had said it.

Donnie had finished drawing the bath for his red head. He picked up the knife and walked to the closet he had stashed her in. Blood was running down the side of her head. She could also taste it in her mouth, that sick metallic taste it leaves behind. He had tied her hands up and she was placing them over her stomach, trying desperately to protect the life that was there. She tried to yell at him to not touch her as he came closer, feeling her skin and her hair, the knife still in his hand. Her demands would not be heard, she had been gagged. Donnie picked her up and dragged her into the bathroom that was lit with candles and bubbles from the tub. He slammed her down on the hard tile floor to check the temperature once again. Scully slowly stood up and Donnie stood and approached her. Scully used all the energy she could muster and swung at him sending him into the bath tub and took off. She was stuck though. She couldn't find her way out.

Desperately pulling at every door handle she came across, all locked. She found one that wasn't. A closet. She noticed it had random things in it for keeping the house up such as oil for squeaking doors and wasp spray. She bolted in, hearing Donnie taunt her, the predator looking for his prey. When he came to that door he opened it slowly. It was now or never. Scully lunged spraying whatever she had grabbed into his eyes and ran past him. Even though his eyes were burning, he was not about to give up. He thrust himself at her taking her down the stairs, himself too. At he bottom Scully noticed her gun lying on the rug. She grabbed at it and tried to aim but Donnie smacked it away. Donnie suddenly got off Scully. She couldn't figure out why until Mulder stood over her shaking form. He helped her to sit up, yelling for a paramedic.

Scully had been kept in the hospital for a number of days, mostly to monitor her pregnancy. She had taken a beating and she would bounce back from that. Mulder rarely left her side as she slid in and out of consciousness due to the amount of drugs they had Scully on. He left only to call Mrs. Scully and Emily. He told Emily mommy was fine but needed to rest and couldn't come to the phone. On the second evening Mrs. Scully asked why her daughter would be hospitalized for so long. Mulder's voice cracked. "We're pregnant." He'd told her. He was sure if her brother Bill ever saw Mulder, he'd be killed.

Scully would come to only for a matter of minutes for the first few days. Mulder wanted her to know Emily was fine and that she was ok and safe. He couldn't seem to get anything out of anyone about their baby. He wasn't considered immediate family. When Scully came to on the fourth day after being weaned off several of the drugs they had kept her on to run the tests on the fetus, she turned to look at Mulder. He was holding her hand while he himself was stretched out in the chair next to him, head dropped forward, eyes closed. He stirred when he felt her eyes on him. "Hey" He said leaning into her. "Hi." She said. She felt stiff but she could move. She took her free hand and felt her forehead trying to get at an itch. She felt the stitches there instead of the itch. Mulder sat there staring at her. "Is the baby ok?" He asked. This had been gnawing at him these past four days. Scully nodded down at the end of the bed. "Get me my file." He stood and grabbed it up. Scully struggled to sit up but managed to push herself on her elbow to a semi sitting position. She read her file and the test results and exhaled. "We've got a fighter Mulder." She said smiling. He placed his hand over her stomach that was poking out and gave it a little squeeze. In a couple of days they'd be back home. He knew he needed a plan to keep her off the x-files, but for now, he just sat to be just be with Scully.


	13. Chapter 13

A week later and Mulder was in Mrs. Scully's home just trying to pick up Emily. "Fox you had better explain yourself! What did you mean on the phone?" Mrs. Scully was careful not use the words pregnant nor raise her voice. Emily was in the room with them, sitting at the table, watching this unfold. Mulder had shown up a day early to surprise both Mrs. Scully and Emily. Mrs. Scully was in his face, demanding answers.

"I promise, come by tomorrow and we'll explain. Dana's in the car resting; I just want to finish getting them home." Mulder's eyes plead with Mrs. Scully's. At the mention of her daughter, she softened.

"Why didn't she tell me sooner?" She asked, glancing down towards Emily.

"That I can't answer. She has to tell you." Mrs. Scully nodded.

Emily understood that the conversation was over and that it was safe for her to go into Mulder's arms. "Where's Mommy?" She asked as Mulder picked her up. He smiled down at her. Mulder could tell Emily had spent time outside as her freckles were appearing. He did recall something about a permission slip for the zoo. He felt a pang. He and Scully had hoped to chaperone the field trip but work had had other plans for them. Well, it was more that Scully was hospitalized. Emily's piercing blue eyes, so like her mothers, looked into Mulder's. "Mommy's in the car. We wanted to surprise you and get you early." Emily smiled up at Mulder. She apparently very much liked this. Mulder set Emily down and she hugged Mrs. Scully and went upstairs.

Mulder had hoped to be able to get Scully home and get her settled before getting Emily, but the last couple of days in the hospital, being able to talk to Emily, Emily was all Scully wanted. He understood that. Emily had always been her world. He had hoped that after the flight back home that Scully would have reasoned getting herself back home would come first. This wasn't to be the case and that had sent him to Baltimore, knocking at Maggie Scully's door for their daughter. He realized he didn't know when, but Emily had become his daughter.

He smiled and went up the stairs after Emily to help get herself together. They had only meant to leave Emily for two maybe three days, instead it had become two weeks. He walked into what was Scully's old bedroom that had transformed into Emily's bedroom. This room was much different than the one Scully had made up for her in her home. Winnie the Pooh seemed to be the theme along with pale yellows and greens. He began bunching Emily's clothes into her bag and picked her up with her pink tattered blanket that she refused to go anywhere without, it even needed to be packed in her bag for day care, her alien stuffed animal and then went to pick up Emily in his arms.

"Tomorrow evening," he nodded at Mrs. Scully and walked down the walk way to the car.

Scully who had been sitting in it, resting, smiled seeing Mulder carrying Emily towards the car. Mulder pulled open the back door and put Emily in her booster seat, buckling her in then coming around to the driver's seat and pulled away.

By the time Mulder got back to Georgetown Emily and Scully were both asleep. Waking Scully, Mulder went to get Emily. They trekked up to Scully's door.

The next morning Scully was lying on the sofa, wrapped up in a blanket with Emily in her lap, snuggled up against her mother. Scully had woken up early, she had had enough sleep in the past week. Emily had come out, looking for her mom and Mulder and found Scully on the sofa. Emily climbed up into her arms and gone back to sleep, while Scully stared down at her child. Mulder, awoke with a start to feel the bed empty. He swiftly got up, pulling a shirt and pants on to go look for Scully. The first place he checked was the bathroom but the medicine proved to be helping and she wasn't there. He walked out into the family room to see Emily in her mom's arms sleeping. Mulder sighed and came next to the sofa, lifting Scully's feet, sitting down, and placing them back on his lap. Scully smiled.

"Don't smile like that. You're going to kill me in a moment." Scully lifted an eyebrow. "While you were in the hospital I told your mother." Scully groaned. "Oh, it get's better. She's coming by tonight to talk."

That evening the knock on the door came. Mrs. Scully had shown up with Melissa, who happened to pop back up in town earlier that day. Scully smiled answering the door, pale yellow silk shirt and jeans. "Hi Mom." She took in Melissa. "Melissa!" The two walked in as Scully shut the door behind them. "Emily," she called down the hall. "Aunt Melissa is here." Emily slid down the wooden floor of the hallway in her tights. Scully laughed. It was like Tom Cruise sliding. "Aunt Melissa!"

After dinner, they were all seated at the table. Scully sighed. She knew she had some explaining to do to her mother. "Well. Mulder and I are having a baby." Emily stared up from Melissa's lap.

"I get to be a big sister?" Emily asked, awe struck. Scully nodded. "And Mulder gets to be my daddy?" Scully didn't know how to answer that one and looked to Mulder who was already nodding at Emily. Scully looked around to her mother and Melissa. Melissa's jaw had dropped. Scully guessed her mother hadn't told Melissa yet. Oops. Mulder picked Emily up off of Melissa's lap. "Time for bed squirt." He said carrying Emily off to give Scully time to talk to her mother and Melissa.

"I guess congratulations are in order. How far along are you?" Melissa asked, once she managed to recover. Scully smiled. "About fourteen weeks." Scully said sliding the ultrasound photo from two weeks ago across towards her mother and Melissa. The two looked down at it.

"Why did wait so long to say anything?" Mrs. Scully asked her daughter. Scully had never told her mother what had happened when she had been rushed back to the emergency room by her parents after Emily's birth.

"After you and dad had rushed me back to the emergency room after Emily was born, I was told I had less than a 1% chance to ever get pregnant again. I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up too high." Mrs. Scully put her hand over her daughter's.

"Are you happy?" She asked her daughter, knowing the answer before it was even spoken.

"Yes. I am." Scully smiled.

Mulder came back out into the kitchen, half expecting to get killed. Instead, he was greeted by smiles. When he came back in, Melissa and Mrs. Scully took their leave, hugs all around. "Well, I'm still standing." Mulder joked, pulling Scully into his arm on the sofa. Leaning in she playfully punched him in the ribs. Scully crossed her arms and leaned her cheek against his shoulder. "It did go better than I expected." Mulder had been asking a question to himself all day, however. How was he going to approach AD Skinner about Scully and her pregnancy? When Scully went to sleep that night, Mulder called up Skinner.

"Can we meet some where? I need to talk to you."

A couple of hours later, Mulder walked into a local diner near the Hoover building that stayed open all night for the agents. He slid in across the booth from Skinner.

"What's so important that this couldn't wait Mulder?" Skinner asked. Mulder exhaled.

"Sir, Scully and myself have entered into a relationship." He watched Skinner nod and sip his coffee. He placed the cup back down onto the table.

"Is that it Agent Mulder?"

"Scully is pregnant." It was a good thing Skinner hadn't picked his coffee back up. His eyes went wide. "She's nearing 4 months. She's going to start showing soon Sir." Mulder was telling Skinner this to keep Scully safe. Scully was already showing, but had been managing to hide it well, which was going to become more difficult for her soon. Skinner exhaled. He had wanted to call his agents in in the morning to give them the bad news. He took that moment instead to tell Mulder.

"The x-files have been closed. You're both being reassigned."


	14. Chapter 14

The next day when both Mulder and Scully reported to work it was different. They had been shut out of the basement office. Mulder reported to doing surveillance in bank fraud while Scully was sent to the morgue at Quantico, teaching how to do proper autopsies.

Scully and Mulder hated their division. Mulder hated being stuck behind a desk and Scully didn't want to go back to teaching. Deep down, Mulder was slightly grateful that Scully had been moved out of harms way. She was showing now and unable to cover it up. When Scully would come back to the Hoover building, rumors would go flying around about the "Ice Queen" and who the father of the baby was. Both Scully and Mulder were very careful about how they appeared to everyone while at work. They both hoped that if the x-files reopened, they could be partnered up again, therefore keeping their private relationship out of the building was in order. The only one who knew about Mulder and Scully was Skinner. Skinner had slowly become a figure that both agents could turn to and trust.

Mulder visited her every chance he got, but his new assignment had him moving from place to place. The first stop whenever back in DC was Scully's. He felt terrible. He hated leaving Scully doing everything by herself but he had to keep working and working on getting the x-files reopened.

His work took him to a strange homicide in a small town. Out of Mulder's "love" of Scully, he sent all the bodies back to Scully for autopsy at Quantico. What eventually got the x-files reopened were illegal experimental pesticides spraying over the town heightening fear with subliminal messages with machines telling victims how to end their phobias.

Not long after the x-files reopening Emily turned five. The apartment was a ruckus. Children everywhere, Scully's brother Bill and his wife had even managed to come in. Charlie managed to get some leave as well and be there. Twenty little kids were running around the apartment playing cowboys and Indians as the older ones, Emily's cousins, had started it. It was barely one pm and Scully was already drained. Scully was in the kitchen trying to get dirty dishes up talking with Mulder, who was leaning against the counter when Bill walked in. Bill had heard plenty of Mulder and had never liked him. He surveyed him up and down. Scully turned around and looked at her eldest brother. "Hi Bill." A crash came from out in the living room followed by tears which sounded like Emily. Scully scurried out of the kitchen to see what had happened.

Bill stomped up to Mulder, sizing him up. Mulder stood his ground, staying just as he had been found when Bill walked into the kitchen. "What are you intensions with Dana?" Bill had always been painfully protective of Dana and now that their father wasn't in the picture, he was determined to keep Scully law. Mulder stared at him.

"Does it really matter what they are to you?" Mulder knew he probably just should have answered the question, but he couldn't help baiting Bill. It was too easy. Bill gritted his teeth. "Think maybe you should move to house?" Bill asked as he heard yet another crash. Scully came back into the kitchen hand on the small of her back. "I give up," she sighed. "Too many kids in a small place makes for bad ideas." She took in her brother and Mulder. Bill looked ready to punch Mulder. Obviously she had missed something. "Um…What's going on?" Bill stared at his baby sister. "Nothing," he responded stomping out of the kitchen. Mulder just shrugged his shoulders.

By 8:00pm, Scully had the apartment back in order as well as given numerous band-aids to Emily. She didn't have any scratches on her but Emily was going through a put a band-aid on it and its all better phase. Mulder was in the kitchen finishing the dishes for Scully so that she could finally sit down and rest. Her family hadn't been great that day. Scully had been on edge since Bill stormed out of the kitchen that he was going to try to start a fight and that Charlie, to mimic his brother would be dumb enough to join. Mrs. Scully was trying to get the sex of the baby out of Scully, which she didn't know, in order to get the nursery under way. Melissa just sat there being flaky as always. She looked ready to crack by mid afternoon. Mulder came out from the kitchen and sat next to Scully, placing a kiss on her lips, then moving her hand and placing one on her protruding stomach, which was a basketball that was slightly deflated. If you put a baggy enough shirt on Scully, it was hard to tell, but Mulder preferred her in her tighter ones, showing that small basketball off.

Something Bill had said to Mulder had stuck. This place was pretty small. Not small in a bad way, cozy and quant, but only two bedrooms and two bathrooms, one set being the masters. "Ya know, Bill did ask why we don't get a house." He said causally to Scully." Oh lord. That's Bill's way of trying to insult you. He may be the eldest but he has issues with coming up with a decent come back. He's such an ass." Scully was off on a tangent. He'd been thinking about that lately as well. He wanted to sell his own place and be with Scully and Emily full time. Scully shrugged her shoulders at him. "Guess lack of time. I don't know."

"How would you feel about that? Us moving in together, not necessarily a house outside the skirts of DC but maybe a townhouse here. More room for the kids." Scully couldn't believe what Mulder was saying. He had always kept his place and she had viewed it as somewhere he could go when Emily and her got to be too much for him. She guessed she'd had that wrong. "I guess we could look." She said struggling to get up to go to bed. Mulder helped to lift her and went with her.

Scully lead him into the bedroom and shut the door, locking it behind her. Her second trimester had left her feeling less nausea but her hormones were doing things they hadn't done with Emily. She felt like she could never seem to get enough of Mulder. She turned and kissed him, moaning at the contact. Mulder wrapped his arms around Scully. Their kissing became more frantic and Mulder moved them towards the bed. He began sucking at the groove of Scully's shoulder eliciting a moan from Scully. Her breathing was picking up.

Scully pulled back from Mulder and shoved him down towards the bed. Scully pulled Mulder's v-neck sweater over his head, then proceeded to make work of the buttons on his button down. Mulder grabbed hold of Scully's hips, lifting her shirt up and kissing the newly exposed skin. He managed to make quick work of Scully's leggings and panties before lying her down on the bed. He shucked himself out of his jeans before trailing kisses down her body. He parted her legs with his hand and maneuvered himself between her. He dropped his head down into her curls and began kissing. His tongue slipped out and tasted her. Scully moaned, arching her hips. Mulder continued sucking and licking at her, adding fingers to her. Scully's breath was becoming ragged. Scully leaned up on her elbows to watch Mulder, thoroughly turned on. He glanced his eyes up at her hitting home. Scully threw her head back and arched, bucking her hips into Mulder's face.

Mulder brought himself next to her as she came back down from her high. He had not been inside her since she had told him she was pregnant, but still loved to give her pleasure. He felt Scully take his hand that he had used to pump her, up to her lips and began licking his fingers clean. Mulder's already stiff cock, tried to go even more stiff if it was possible. His breath hitched in his throat. Scully pulled at the waist band of his boxers. Mulder lifted his hips up and Scully slid his boxers down while Mulder finished kicking them off. Mulder had moved to kissing Scully, his free hand around her neck.

Suddenly Scully rolled herself and settled herself on top of Mulder. Mulder's dick could feel her. God how he wanted her. "Scully" He moaned. Scully whispered in his ear. "Please Mulder." Mulder lost it. He lifted Scully's hips up and helped guide himself into her. He groaned at the contact and warmth around him. "Oh god." He breathed out. Scully was already bouncing herself on top of him. "Mulder," she whispered out, head thrown back. Her skin was flushed and as Mulder grabbed onto her hips to help speed her up and keep the rhythm. She was close. Mulder knew by the way she was clutching at his chest and panting, praising god. He felt her body tighten around him and he pumped furiously into her for a few more moments before cumming himself. It seemed to take him hours to come down from his orgasm since it had been so long. Scully had pulled herself off him and had drifted off. Mulder put his hand over her stomach. "Sorry if you saw something kiddo." He addressed her stomach. "But your mom. Jesus kid, your mom."


	15. Chapter 15

Mulder had dragged Scully down to the office one warm Saturday. Scully wanted nothing more than to be outside, taking some of the last few weeks to spend with Emily, although she supposed she could take sick days closer to her maternity leave and be with Emily. She still had nearly four months to go. She walked back into the office to see Mulder sitting there with one of the books of old news papers in front of him. Scully dropped a new one in front of him on the desk. That was when she noticed that Mulder had been sitting there reading baseball box scores. "Really Mulder?" He shrugged his shoulders. "That box score is like the pathargum theory for jocks." He noticed something in a picture, pretended to sneeze and rip the page. "You just defaced government property." Scully called after him as he had run down the hall way. Scully shook her head and went to collect her daughter.

Mulder found himself in front of the apartment door of an Arthur Dales. But it wasn't the Arthur Dales Mulder had spoken with before. That was when this Arthur Dales informed him that that was his brother and his parents sucked at naming their children. Mulder questioned the man about the picture but Dales spat back that Mulder didn't care about baseball. Mulder's jaw dropped at the accusation. "I do too!" Baseball was Mulder's passion. After gaining admittance into Dales door Dales began to tell Mulder about the summer that photograph had been taken.

Mr. Exley had had offers from the Yankees to come up and play ball but he had turned them down, saying he just wanted to play ball. Dales had been called in to offer protection after a group of KKK members disrupted a ball game demanding no other black player but Exley. Dales began traveling with the team, determined to keep Exley safe, regardless of race. Dales could care less about that shit. His job was to keep Exley safe and that was what he was going to do.

"Hold the phone," Mulder interrupted. "Are you telling me Exley was an alien?" Dales nodded at Mulder.

"All the great ones were. Now let me continue."

Dales was at the Roswell Municipal Field when Exley took a ball to the head. They had all run out to the plate, trying to revive him. Exley began to speak in a crazy language no one had ever heard before.  
"Josh. Ex! Where are you from?" Exley stopped and shook his head. He had to ponder the question for a split second.

"Makin, Georgia." He said. His teammates helped him to the dugout to continue on with the game. Whether or not Dales wanted to admit it he was becoming close to the members of the Grays. The bump on the head to Exley did cause Dales to question. After the game and the safe arrival of Exley, Dales went to the police station to make a phone call down to Georgia. The man on the other end told him that the only Josh Exley in the area was a colored six-year-old boy who had disappeared about five years ago. But his Josh Exley wasn't even close to 11 years old.

The next day one of the little boys who was always in attendance at the games bent over the dug out to talk to Ex. Dales overheard the little one ask about his head, to which he happily responded that he was ok and their pitcher threw like a lady. The boy was happy and informed him there were scouts in the audience. When Exley had thrown enough of the game that the scouts left, Ex hit a home run right into the score board.

Dales knew Ex was hiding something. Dales went to talk to him that night on the bus. "I know your real name isn't Josh Exley. Josh Exley was a missing six year old boy from Makin, Georgia, who disappeared about the same time you showed up in Roswell."

Dales was awoke late that night to the sounds of Exley next door in his room. Fearing for his safety, Dales went into Exley's room to come face to face with a grey alien practicing his batting stance. Dales admitted to Mulder that that is when he lost consciousness.

"You're supposed to be some big bad cop and you just keep fainting. Now before you go and do that again, hold on. It's me Arthur. Josh Exley. This is what I really look like." Dales poked at Exley. "Is it really you?" Exley faked anger. "Now I'm trying to not be insulted here."

That morning on the bus, Dales made it his point to figure out Exley. "Our people don't like us to intermingle with your people." Dales seemed confused. He still had to be dreaming. "Your family?" Dales question. Exley shrugged. "Kinda left them. I saw a baseball game and fell in love. See Arthur our people don't have laughter but when I saw that game it just kinda rose up on out of me. Everything about the game I'm in love with. It means everything to me." Dales smiled. On some level he understood what Exley was saying. "After that, I just couldn't fix myself to go home." He admitted to Dales. Dales nodded. There were just some things you fell hard for.

"Wait. Ok. So lemme get this straight." Mulder had gone and interrupted Dales again. "You met yourself a free spirited alien who ran away from all the other non fun having aliens to play baseball but he made himself black because at the time there wasn't a single black person in the majors when he started so that would keep him off the radar?" Mulder stared at Dales. Was this guy a crack pot? "Sir, you certainly have a way with words, turning chicken salad into chicken shit." "Ok fine. Are you also implying that this alien had something to do with the Roswell crash?" Dales shook his head. "Trust the tale Agent McGuiver. Trust the tale." Mulder still confused declared himself an official horses ass but let Dales continue, interested where this tale was going.

From when Ex had been hit, there was a glove placed under his head to use as a pillow from the dirt. Dales had noticed material on the glove and had asked it to be tested. Dales got a call from the lab tech informing Dales that he had called it in. Dales begged him to get it back. As the lab tech hung up someone looking a lot like Exley came in and killed the lab tech. Dales had received the call and went straight to Exley. "Ex. There's a guy at the precinct who will swear on his life that he saw you kill a man today. You have to get out of here, I know you are no killer." Exley just threw the baseball to Dales, starting a game of catch. "I had a talk with my relative today. He made me see that there is nothing as important as family. I have to go back." Dales stared at Exley, tossing the ball back to him.

"You still consider them to be your family?"

"Course I do." Exley replied smiling. "Who else would that be?"

"Maybe your team." Dales said shrugging and catching the ball Exley had thrown.

"Next thing I know your going to keep telling me that all these little kids expect a record. That the blacks expect me to get to the majors, even though I'm not really one of them. All for the concept of human pride." Exley had been waiting for Dales to throw the ball back.

"I don't know Ex." Dales responding by tossing the ball back.

"See Arthur, we don't think like that. We may be able to look like y'all but we anit y'all. You know what separates us?" Dales shook his head.

"What?" He half expected Exley to keep up the serious conversation they were having while playing catch.

"We got rhythm." Exley replied laughing. Dales could only respond with laughter as they threw the ball a few more times. "Do me a favor though. Tell your kids what I done out here on the field." The sirens were closing in on the park. He nodded at Exley's request. That's when he left Exley to run.

That night the ball park was closed so the game was moved out into the desert. The pitcher was trying to pitch but kept hitting the cactus that was being used as the home plate back wall. "You sure you're pitcher got the right prescription in those specs?" Exley asked as he took the mound. He got into his stance as the pitcher lobbed a ball but Ex hit it foul into the dark that the car headlights couldn't cover. Exley wound up for another pitch. This time it was a beautiful connection. The ball was gone. That was when the KKK came back and interrupted their game. The pitcher, who hadn't been able to throw properly all night had a grand pitch, right at one of the members head's, knocking him off the horse he had come riding in on. The team the Roswell Greys were playing cheered at their pitch. "That's right Moose! Over the top." Moose kept on throwing balls at the KKK and scared all but the knocked over one off. When they went to pull his hat off, they saw a gray body with wide black eyes. He shook his head and retook his human form. Everyone but Exley ran.

The KKK member stood up and pulled a sharp object out. "It's over." Exley nodded. "I warned you what would happen if you didn't stop." Exley continued to nod.

"I hit a home run tonight. Number 61. I broke a record."

"You would risk all of this for a record? The entire project? Show me your true face so I can execute you with dignity."

"This is my true face." Exley said, maintain his human form. The alien turned Exley around and stabbed him in the neck then took off running just as Dales pulled up. Dales ran to his side and picked his friend up. "Arthur, don't touch me! Our blood! It's like acid to your kind." Exley was trying desperately to get away. Dales showed Exley his hand. "It's just blood Ex. It's just blood." Exley smiled with his last breath and died in his arms.

Mulder sat with Dales when he had finished his story of Josh Exley in silence. He wasn't sure whether or not to take Dales at his word but there was a bigger lesson hidden in it. Exley had gone home. On the baseball field.

That night Scully walked in with Emily and noticed the light on the machine blinking. She pushed play as she pulled off Emily's sandals. "It's me. Meet me down at the diamonds. I've got either a very late or a very early birthday or Christmas present for you." She just put back the one sandal she had taken off of Emily, shaking her head.

She showed up to Mulder shagging balls. She shook her head. "Where's the box?" She ask sarcastically. "Have you ever played baseball before? Or just hit the ball?" Emily was basically half asleep as Scully set her down, wrapped in a blanket, on the top of the picnic table.

Mulder pulled Scully into him, her back against his front. He touched her to show her just how to hit. Emily by this point was stirring. Mulder nodded at the kid who was loading the machine up with balls to restart. The kid put a ball in and the machine kicked it out towards Mulder and Scully. Scully screamed a little bit as Mulder helped her swing the bat. The bat just clipped the ball and it went no where. The next one was not so lucky. Scully with Mulder's help sent it into center field. Emily at that point had detangled herself from the blanket and stood near them. Scully looked down. "Go run the bases for mommy Emily!" Emily took off running around the field. Mulder smirked at her. "Shut up Mulder. I'm playing baseball." Mulder pretended to be hurt. "I didn't say anything." Scully shook her head as Emily came into home. Another ball was spat out of the machine. "Run again Emily!" As Emily took off running, Scully turned to Mulder. "But I knew you wanted to say something."


	16. Chapter 16

sorry guys, was trying to have everything timed out to get you the xmas chapter, didn't happen. was also going to publish yesterday...site wasn't working for me.

As Scully was nearing her maternity leave, she was reassigned behind a desk and off field work. A new agent had been assigned to the x-files and to Mulder. An Agent John Doggett. Scully had stayed down in the x-files office but not allowed in the field in order to help train the replacement. Doggett was a new agent, straight from the New York police department. Doggett had seen his days though. Scully and Mulder never got the full story, but Doggett had worked homicide as a detected for the New York police department when his seven year old son had disappeared. He had been found a week later, dead.

Scully was sitting in the more comfortable chair behind Mulder's desk under the pencils with Mulder digging through the files, some new theory going on in his mind when Doggett walked in. He was shorter than Mulder only by a couple of inches, his dark brown hair kept short, probably due to his time in the Marines, and his light blue eyes had a toughness trying to hide sorrow to them.

Mulder tried to play nice, even though he felt threatened by Scully's removal and this guys assignment. He tried to reason to himself that in her last month at work there would be no way Scully would be able to keep up. Mulder just stared at him. "John Doggett," Doggett said, sticking his hand out. Scully reached across the desk and took it. "Dana Scully. The guy there with the goofy look on his face is Fox Mulder." She had then pointed the time out to Mulder and the two of them stood up to go. That had been a week ago.

Mulder had decided to go off and do some investigation into a potential x-file and told Scully he'd be back in a couple of days. Twenty four hours after Mulder had left and failed to call to check in and see how Scully was doing, the Lone Gunmen, Mulder's if not quirkiest friends, but dearest friends showed up at Scully's desk. "We've got a problem." Scully looked at them. If they had gotten busted hacking there was nothing she could do for them. "Mulder went and did something stupid." Ok. So maybe it was more serious than she had thought. The Gunmen handed her a paper. "What am I looking at?"

"Well nothing now, but this morning a ship appeared out of nowhere and it appeared to be the Queen Anne."  
"But it was hit by a torpedo of a German u-boat."

"That was one theory. Mulder was being tracked by us but a storm blew up and we lost connection."

Scully had connections she had to pull. She went rushing up to Skinner's office and barged in. "Sir. I need your help." Skinner dropped the phone. "It's time?" Skinner was staring at the large basketball underneath Scully's shirt and blazer. He had known Mulder was off to do field work, but he had not expected his young agent to go into labor. Scully shook her head. "No Sir. I need some information." Skinner stopped her not allowing her to elaborate fully. "I can't help you Dana. I'm no longer in charge of you." Scully wanted to hit him. Mulder and the x-files were still under him, she was a technicality. "It's not for me! It's to help Mulder." He had been staring at the sheet that she had walked in with. He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I can't." Still a frustrated Scully threw the paper the Gunmen had given her at Skinner and stormed off. She wasn't one to normally to be crossed but with her pregnancy, it wasn't good to mess with her. She could make it rain fire and brimstone if tempted.

Scully went out of AD Skinner's office and to the office of a director she hated. Kersch. She burst in. "Sir, I have to talk to you." She never got the chance to fully elaborate for Kersch either. Kersch, being in the middle of a meeting, Scully knew she could not confront him there, in front of everyone. She turned and went to the last place she could think of. She walked into her old office, hoping Doggett would be there. He wasn't. Damnit! This was not going well. She went back into the elevator and tried calling Mulder. This had to be a joke to send her into early labor. "We're sorry, but the caller cannot be reached." Played back at her.

Her phone rang in her hand a moment later. "Mulder? Is that you? I can't hear you! I'm in the elevator." She stepped off at a floor, still hearing static and climbing back in to try the next floor. When the doors opened she walked into Skinner's chest. He slid papers into the one Scully had been carrying around. He suddenly acted as if he was giving her a reprimand. "Don't ever ask me to break procedure." Scully just grabbed him by the shoulders and placed a kiss on him. She took off to the Gunmen and out to get Mulder.

Meanwhile, Mulder was being pulled onto a wet deck with rain pelting down on it. The men that pulled him up insisted that he was dressed weird while he was of the opinion that it was them dressing weird. One of the men punched him across the jaw then dragged him to a standing position. One of the sailors kept calling him Jerry. Mulder was dazed from the punch. "It's Mulder. My name is Mulder. I've got ID in my pocket." The sailor dug the ID out from his pocket. "FBI. Never heard of it." Mulder was shocked. How could a person never have heard of the FBI? Mulder was being dragged below decks to the captain's room. He heard the one sailor whisper that they thought they had found a German.

They slugged him in the jaw a couple more times. "Wait. This is the Queen Anne right? I came looking for this ship. You're location is 3 degrees above the 30th parallel, Sargoso Sea, just above the Tropic of Cancer 64 degrees west by southwest off the Plantagenous Bay sixty miles south by southwest off Bermuda. How would I know that if I've been in the water? Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me you haven't been able to get accurate readings. You're in a devil's triangle and you're trapped in some kind of time rift and you've reappeared in the future." The captain looked at Mulder like he was mad. "I don't have time for this, there's a war brewing." Mulder shook his head. "No. No war. The world is at peace. Just a little trouble in our white house, but that will blow over like always."

"World isn't at peace. It's September 3, 1939. Hitler's invaded Poland and we've been boarded."  
"No!" Mulder said trying to show them his watch. "It's November 16. See."

A knock on the captain's door interrupted them. "Sir, the German's have control of the bridge and they've set a course in for Germany."

"Not on my watch." The captain replied. "Lock the prisoner up." He said referring to Mulder.

"Let them take you to Germany. They make great cars!"

Mulder noticed a radio on the desk when he was left by himself. He tried to radio for help, hoping someone would hear him. Instead, he got a shock. He managed to pick up the BBC, announcing that it was September 3, 1939. That London was evacuating it's children and the country was indeed at war with Germany. "Shit." Mulder knew if he ever got back, he was going to be in major trouble with Scully. He heard someone trying to open the room and hid in a corner. A Nazi entered the room. Hiding in the corner, Mulder waited and bought his time. When the solider was close enough Mulder tackled him, knocking him unconscious. He had to find a way off this ship back into his time. He stripped the solider down and took his uniform.

Mulder stepped out into the hallways of the ship looking around. How does one get off and get back into their own time? He heard German down the hall and went in the opposite direction. He did not want to run into the Nazis. He took off, as the German language followed him. He weaved his way in and out of the hallways and somehow managed to find himself in the Queen Anne's ballroom.

Some kind of party was going on. Dancing, someone singing, men in tuxedos and women in silk filled the room. He turned and bumped into a red head. "Scully!" Except she wasn't pregnant. "Get your Nazi paws off me unless you want to get one in the kisser." She said. He hadn't even noticed he'd grabbed her upper arms.

"I'm not a Nazi. I had to steal this uniform." Scully rolled her eyes at him, the way Scully would do. She had her hair pinned up in complex curls, a red silk dress on cut low in the front and back, showing the sides of her breasts. She had red silk gloves on covering her hands, stopping at her elbows. He did always love her in red. Her freckles, she was still trying to hide he noticed and smiled. "Well I'll hit you so hard you'll see stars and stripes," she said. The woman singing in front of them stopped and spoke in German pointing down at Mulder. "They say to put your hands up." She told Mulder cockily as the Nazi's tried to drag him away. "I told you." He hissed at Scully. He fought to get free. "Yeah. You're all talk now. Wait til your asses get to Russia. I hope you like the cold." One solider took a baton and whacked Mulder over the head, causing his world to go dark.

The rain coming down on his face outside on the deck brought him to. He desperately fought to get away. He managed to knock a couple of the soldiers down but he was outnumbered. He was dragged to the helm. A man had his back to him, speaking to the captain of the Queen Anne. He seemed to be the one in charge, having a superior air about him. He turned and walked towards Mulder. Mulder's jaw dropped. The man in the Nazi uniform in front of him was smoking and none other than Cancer Man. "You." Mulder spat in his face. Cancer Man said something in German to him. Mulder knew he should have paid more attention in his German class at Oxford, but there was a cute blonde two rows in front of him that had kept him preoccupied. Then Skinner in his own Nazi uniform appeared at the side of Cancer Man as the group of Nazi that had dragged him into the room dragged him out. "Skinner. Skinner! Where are they taking me?!" He yelled into the night.

Mulder was being led down into the engine rooms of the Queen Anne. One of the crew that had originally pulled Mulder on deck was behind him being led down as well. The German's we're officially in control of the ship now. The guy behind Mulder was driving him nuts. "Two words. Pearl Harbor." That seemed to shut him up… For a second. "What?" Mulder sighed. Mind as well give a history lesson, or in this case, a future lesson.

"Hitler doesn't stop at Poland. He moves onto Denmark, Holland, and France, plus a few more stops in between. The French all but roll over on us. That's when the Italians seize their opportunity and the Japanese come in through the back door. Long bloody story but it fortunately has a happy ending." Mulder thought that should keep him musing.

"We win?" The Brit sailor questioned.

"You come out on the winning side with some help from us. You've had very little to apologize about since, except maybe the Spice Girls." Emily had recently discovered a girl in her class's older sister's CD collection and had come home belting out Spice Up Your Life. Mulder was sure he couldn't take the damn thing playing one more moment.

At that point the German in front of him opened the door to the engine room, shoving Mulder and what was left of the Queen Anne's original crew in.

"Our new accommodations he says" the Brit informed the men.

"Wait. You speak German? What was all that yelling about up top?"

"They've got it in their minds that we left America carrying something important."

"Are we?" Mulder asked. "The captain knew something because he wouldn't give up the wheel."

"Well the Nazi's boarded us after intercepting a radio transmission. They keep asking about this code word. Thor's Hammer."

Out of the steam of the engine room came a shout. "Who goes there?" A tall muscular black man approached what was left of the crew and Mulder. "Why are we stopped?"

"We're your own crew for godssake." Another British sailor yelled. The man took in the new engine room visitors.

"But what are you doing down here?"

"Having a cup of tea." Shouted one of the other crew members.

"Then who's steeling the boat?" Clearly out of the loop from the rest of the crew.

"Oh just some blokes that answer to 'Hail Hitler' and they're taking us back to Germany." At the mention of being taken back to Germany Mulder decided it was time to interrupt.

"Hold it! No, no, no! This ship can't go back to Germany." The crew began to crowd around Mulder. "It's not munitions you guys are carrying."

"Thor's Hammer?" Asked the sailor Mulder had given the 'history' lesson to.

"Thor's Hammer is a man. He will help build a bomb that is extremely destructive to whoever has him."

"And he's on this ship?" History lesson scuffed at Mulder.

"I saw him. In the ball room." History lesson smiled and pushed past the rest of the crew and knocked on the door to which it opened. He told what Mulder had just proclaimed in German. The remaining crew was pissed. They'd been double crossed. The head of the engine room could have konked Mulder over the head with the coal shovel he was holding but finding a way to stop the boat was more important. Down by one of the steamers, someone had locked the controls, declaring it was the course for home. Home for him happened to be Jamaica. Mulder had to break up the fight that was getting ready to ensue.

"You've got to turn this ship around, back the way you've came. The future or rather the past is back there." Germans came down and grabbed Mulder. "Do it! Or Germany wins and your children will never know freedom." The Germans dragged Mulder out of the engine room, leaving what was left of the entire crew of the Queen Anne down in the steam of the boilers and fires.

Mulder was taken roughly up to the ball room. Mulder knew what was coming. He had told the double crossing Brit that he'd seen the man capable of building the bomb that would end the war in there. The band had ceased playing, there was no singing and no dancing this time. Mulder was thrown on the floor. They roughly stood him on his feet. "Who is this man?" A Nazi asked. Mulder shrugged his shoulders. "You will answer the question or we will begin killing passengers." Mulder shrugged his shoulders again. "I don't know." A Nazi calmly broke away and walked down the line of the people and pointed his gun at one and shot him in the head, killing him immediately, blood pooling on the floor. The Nazi did the same thing again.

Scully moved quickly in the red silk. "He doesn't know anything!" She yelled. "Shut up." The Nazi declared, trying to shove her out of the way. "You little weasel!" Apparently that was the wrong comment to make. The Nazi turned the gun on her. "Wait!" Mulder shouted. He walked over to someone on the floor and pointed down. "This was the man. This was the scientist." The Nazi's held their guns straight at Mulder and Scully, not trusting his judgment. They were getting ready to pull the trigger when a man stepped out of the crowd of people. "Don't shoot. It's me." The Nazis took the man away and knocked Scully and Mulder's legs out from under them, placing them in execution position, guns at the base of their heads. Kneeling there next to Scully he entwined his fingers into hers. If he was going down, it was going to be this way, holding her. As he looked down to the ground a miraculous sound came. Nothing. Silence. The engines had been shut down. Mulder never thought silence would be this beautiful.

The Nazis looked around the ballroom, genuinely confused. Who had ordered the ship to stop? Their commander had been present with them until just a moment ago. Looking around and at each other for answers, shouts could be heard entering into the ballroom from an entrance across the room. What was left of the crew came stampeding in ready for a good fight.

Fists went swinging wildly. The passengers even began to join in. Apparently trying to take people captive was not pleasing to anyone on board. Hell, some of the women even dropped bottles of champagne over the heads of the Nazis, shocked that they had that in them. Mulder and Scully still remained in their position of kneeling on the ballroom floor, Mulder's fingers still entwined in hers. After a few moments of watching the near riot around them, Mulder jumped up, pulling Scully with him and ran out of the room. "You've got to come with me!" Scully tried to pull back and join the fight and find her charge, Thor's Hammer. "Why should I?" Mulder shook his head at her. So like Scully to question everything. "Because you're the only one who can save this ship!"

Mulder dragged Scully through the halls. They had only just turned a corner when German shouts came from behind them. Scully and Mulder stopped in their tracks. He was demanding something, but Mulder didn't know what. Scully sighed and put her hands up behind her head. Mulder followed suit, figuring it was the best option. "Now what Einstein?" Scully asked sarcastically at him. Mulder was thinking but he was at a loss. The Nazi was coming closer. Suddenly a shot was fired. Mulder was expecting to feel the burning sensation the typically accompanies a bullet piercing flesh. When he didn't feel it, he looked over to Scully, quickly checking her over for traces that she was hurt. They put their hands down and looked behind them. Skinner came walking out of the hall they had just been in. "God Bless America now get your asses out of here." Mulder didn't have to think about that one twice and grabbed Scully's hand.

Mulder had brought Scully up deck. "What are you doing?" She asked pulling her arm out of Mulder's grasp. "'I'm going to tell you how to save this ship." Mulder told her, grabbing on to her shoulders. "Out here?" Scully questioned, trying to move away. "Yes out here. I can't stay. I have to get back to history." Scully tried to run back in but Mulder pulled her back. "Are you crazy?" She asked, starting to shiver in the night air. "You've been caught inside a devil's triangle. You need to sail the back into it or everything will be destroyed. Einstein, right? He predicts the theoretical possibility and also predicts a weapon that can destroy the world." Scully pulled out from Mulder. "So what?"

"If you don't' go back in there and insist and convince the crew to turn around the consequences would be catastrophic." He grabbed Scully once more. "In case this is it." He pulled her in for a kiss. Even though it was a passionate one, as soon as they broke apart Scully punched Mulder in the jaw. He shrugged and jumped overboard.

When Mulder came to, Scully was in his face. She looked furious. He mentally hoped getting punched by her past self once today was enough. "You did something incredible stupid Mulder. You went looking for a ship in the Bermuda Triangle." Mulder looked at Scully. "But you were there." She shook her head. Mulder sighed. Scully crossed her arms, making her baby bump more prominent. He reached out for her stomach and touched it. The other Scully had done it. "Scully. I love you."


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Been a bad couple of days over yonder but as a pick me up, you guys get two chapters today. Here's hoping people are still reading it.

Scully had been waddling her way around work but had not been putting full hours in. She was too exhausted to do so, cutting her day short by an hour or two, letting Mulder or her mother have the responsibility of picking Emily up. In those couple of hours she had to herself, she'd rest, and order pizza. That had become her new craving. Pizza. Typically she'd never go near the stuff but it was all her body had wanted. She was sure she had driven Mulder up a wall refusing to learn the sex of the baby. She had loved being surprised with Emily and she was going to be just as thrilled this time around.

Mulder and Doggett seemed to play nice and get along for the sake of it, but if you asked Mulder if he truly trusted Doggett, his answer would be no. Doggett was close minded, in a matter worse than Scully had ever been. He all but refused to believe in extreme possibilities, even when science could offer no explanation.

An agent named Monica Reyes was called into a case, believed to be dealing with satanic crimes on the streets of New Orleans. She'd just politely informed the local PD that what they believed to be satanic clues was actually just cover art from a Marilyn Manson cd. She was just about to leave when the body under the sheet caught her eye. It was ash, burned from the inside out. She shook her head and went to lift up the sheet to see that the victim was not burned at all but had just been mutilated. She walked out of the building and to her hotel room to turn on her computer.

While back in DC, Mulder had gotten Mrs. Scully to take Emily for a couple of days. He wanted to be alone with Scully once more before the baby came, thinking it'd probably be the last time they were truly alone for the next 18 years at least. Mrs. Scully agreed to take her granddaughter knowing and remembering that the time together was important and she had done the same thing with each of her children before the next one arrived. Mulder decided this would be a surprise for Scully and when he showed up early, without Emily, Scully was slightly disappointed, only that Mulder was not the pizza guy she'd been having deliver to her almost daily. Mulder had hidden a gift for Scully behind the pillows on the sofa when she came back into the room with a box of tissues and sat down. She feared she had caught a cold from Emily, who still loved to bring home every germ from school. "Is that for me?" Scully asked, excited at the box with the ribbon around it. Mulder nodded. Scully was sitting down to open it when the doorbell rang. Mulder opened the door and laughed, looking back at Scully. But something was wrong. Scully was grimacing in pain, clutching her side. Mulder dropped his wallet and ran over to her. "Scully? What's wrong?" He looked at the kid holding the pizza box. "Call 911." The kid nodded, dropping the box, entering the apartment for the phone to call for help, while Mulder stayed with Scully.

When entering the ER with the paramedics, Mulder's parade was stopped. "Immediate family only. Are you the husband?" Mulder shook his head. "Then stay here." The commanding nurse turned and walked back to the room they had just taken Scully into. Doggett was approaching Mulder. "Is she ok?" He asked, genuinely worried for Scully but trying to be supportive to his new partner. The nurse must have sensed another person showed up because she stepped out and asked if Doggett was the husband. "No." She turned and left again. "How did you find out Doggett?" Mulder asked. He didn't want this spread around and gossiped through the entire building. "I was dropping off a file, the autopsy report. I was going to ask her to take a look at it. The building manager told me they'd just taken her off to the hospital." Mulder's cell phone rang. "Excuse me." He asked Doggett, turning and walking back down the hallway.

There was a woman on the other end of the line that was not Scully. Of course it wouldn't have been Scully. She was beyond the doors Mulder was not allowed to go behind. "Agent Mulder. My name is Agent Reyes. I have a case I need to consult you on, about a phenomena." Mulder looked around slightly distraught. He wasn't sure he'd have time to deal with any of this. "Listen, can you contact Agent Doggett?" He asked trying to push this off onto his partner in case Scully needed him to be there. "I would, but this concerns Agent Doggett. I'm in New Orleans right now but I have a flight for DC booked and can be at your office by midnight." Mulder nodded into the phone, realizing she couldn't see him, "Yeah. Ok." For the remaining time, he hovered around the doors he wasn't allowed to go behind, trying to get information about Scully.

When he appeared in his office, Reyes was already there. She wasted no time getting to the point. She described what she had seen with the body that evening. "Agent Doggett and I saw the same thing with his son, Luke." Reyes handed him over that file. "He was a detective for the homicide division when Luke went missing. That week was one of the most difficult. I don't know how I ended up being the lead for the FBI on this case. When we found Luke, we saw the same thing, as if the body had been burned from the inside out. Agent Doggett believed he saw that for a moment, but then insists he didn't. I was wondering about the connections." Mulder looked down at the photos of Luke in his hands. "Give me a couple of hours." He said and got to work while Reyes went to the hotel to get cleaned up.

When she returned, Mulder had about five files pulled out on his desk. "I looked through everything, trying to see if there was some pattern. Anything. What you've described has shown up but it is so rare that all it can be determined is that it is random." He went to stand up. "Now, I've got someone in the hospital." And walked out of the office. Reyes still had to convince Mulder that these two cases were some how connected, however she did notice that he took the file from the case that night with him as well as Luke's. Mulder went back to the hospital until it was time to go to work, leaving the waiting area only once, to make a phone call to Reyes to discuss the connection he had managed to make between the two cases.

He was rounding the corner, late to meet up with Reyes, when Doggett came out of no where, slamming him back and pinning him to the wall. "Who asked you to look into this? Stay out!" He screamed at Mulder, holding his son's case file in his face. "Agent Doggett." A soft voice came from behind the two of them. Doggett turned to the voice. "It was me. I asked him to do this." Reyes said as Doggett began to let go of Mulder. Mulder grabbed Doggett by the upper arm and dragged him into the office, Reyes following the two of them up. "So what's this new connection?" Doggett asked after settling down. "There was an accident last night, outside of the building of the murder scene. The man killed in that accident was the man we suspected of killing Luke." Reyes told him. Doggett shook his head and walked out. Mulder was about to do the same when Reyes called out after him, baiting him.

Scully had been moved and admitted for testing and observation. The immediate family ban had been lifted, particularly lifted for Mulder when he finally got a hold of a nurse and explained his situation with Scully. He was not privy to any medical information but was allowed to be with her. She was on an extensive amount of drugs again and rarely awake. Mulder was able to slip away to work, yet still be with her.

Doggett pulled up to a new crime scene and seeing Mulder standing there near one of the cars became pissed off. "Why am I here?" He asked. Mulder shrugged his shoulders. "Agent Reyes won't let this go." They began climbing the grassy knoll towards the crime scene. Reyes and county sheriffs surrounded the body of the new victim. Agent Reyes approached them. "Do you see it John. I want to know if you see it." Doggett went to the victim and stared. Stared at what humans were capable of doing to each other. He turned and walked back towards Reyes, towards his car. "Sorry. I don't see it. I don't know what I'm supposed to see even." Reyes tried to get him to admit what he saw, what he really saw. Mulder being the smart ass that he was quipped in about seeing Elvis in a potato chip once. "You get it Mulder. You understand." Mulder nodded. "I understand but only he sees what he sees." Mulder said nodding at Doggett.

Mulder went back to the hospital and peeked in on Scully. "Are you awake?" He whispered into the room. Scully stirred and looked at him. "Hi." She said lighting up. "Where have you been?" Mulder smiled and moved into the room, carefully closing the door behind him. "Actually, I've been in the field with Agent Doggett and Agent Reyes. She had called me in for a consult." Scully nodded. "I met her once. I like her." Scully's eyes began to get heavy. "So what are you working on?" Mulder brushed the stray hairs out of her face. "Actually it's something involving Doggett's son." Scully's eyes opened slightly at the mention of that case. "Can you help him?" She asked, as Mulder started brushing her cheek with the back of his hand. "You can't help someone that doesn't want to be helped." Scully sighed at Mulder's touch. She was so close to sleep again. "He's worth it Mulder."

Reyes and Doggett had gone out to proceed the man that had killed the woman on the side of the road and the supposed satanic murders as well. It was a man named Jeb Dukes. He had taken his sister's daughter hostage and they had been forced to shoot him in order to save the child. They had rushed Dukes into the hospital while Doggett demanded him to continue to live. That was not meant to be. While operating on Jeb Dukes, Doggett excused himself to go check on Scully. He had barely been in her room less than a minute when Mulder opened the door and nodded at him to come out.

Doggett went to stand across from Scully's door, while Mulder leaned against the frame, tie loose, sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up, stubble taking over his face. He crossed his arms and his ankles. "I just got her to go back to sleep." He said, excusing his reaction to Doggett being in the room. Scully had had a rough afternoon testing wise and he knew she needed the rest. "I was just here, bringing in someone. Jeb Dukes." Doggett told Mulder. Mulder nodded. "And now you're wondering if there really was a connection." The silence was enough of a response for Mulder. "I believe things happen to us that make us open to let evil in." Mulder elaborated. "I've got to go see Emily. We were supposed to pick her up today from spending time with Gramma." Doggett's eyes widened. He never realized how involved Mulder was in Scully's life. "Naturally, Emily isn't coming home or coming here, but she will wonder." Mulder turned and walked towards the exit.

Doggett left to go to the ICU to check on Dukes and to get Reyes so they could begin the paper work for this investigation. He pushed opened the door to find Jeb's sister Katha trying to strangle Reyes on the floor. Doggett pulled his gun and commanded Katha to stop. Once off of Reyes, Doggett called out for help and doctors began to rush in while Doggett turned Reyes over. "It's over now Monica." She groaned, blood running from her temple. "It's never over."

After visiting with Emily, Mulder had gone back to the hospital. He had lost his tie in the car but that was the only wardrobe change for him. He sat in the uncomfortable hospital chair all night. Between dozing, he would pace. In the morning, Mulder couldn't deny his stomach any longer and went down to the cafeteria since his body was beginning to reject just coffee for nutrition. When he came back an hour later Scully was awake. She looked much less distressed. She sat up slightly on her elbows when Mulder poked his head before coming all the way into the room. She began picking at the hospital blanket before looking at Mulder standing next to her. "I had a partial abruption. The placenta began to tear away from the uterine wall." Mulder looked at her. "But it's ok?" Scully nodded. Mulder sat down, placing his hand protectively over her belly. The baby immediately kicked when he did this. Scully smiled at him.

Later that afternoon she was back with Mulder at Scully's small place in Georgetown. Mulder had brought her the pizza she'd never gotten to eat and she laughed. Mulder refused to let her do anything but sit on the sofa. "Aw. Mulder. I wish I could eat it." She laughed at him. "That's ok," he said putting down the plates on the coffee table. He turned and picked up the gift he'd brought for Scully that she'd never gotten to unwrap and handed it to her. "Bet you forgot." He smirked at her. She shook her head, smiling. "No. I sat a lot and wondered about this in my hospital bed. I was thinking what could you have gotten me and had to hope it wasn't anything spooky." She joked at him. She began to unwrap it, like a kid on Christmas. Inside was another box. She began to open that one as well to reveal a blue Tiffany's box and card. She popped open the blue box and opened the drawstrings of the blue bag. She dumped a bracelet out into the palm of her hand. The end charm was a heart. She looked at the card, which was for engraving. On the heart already was Love Mulder, Emily, and. She smiled. "It's beautiful." He smiled. "I'm glad you like it." She looked into his green eyes. "You've already given me so much." Mulder cocked an eyebrow at her. "Courage. Which I hope I can pass on. And love. And…" She looked down to her stomach. He leaned in to kiss her. "Thank you." She whispered before his lips locked with hers.


	18. Chapter 18

Scully was forced by her doctors to begin her maternity leave early. Scully had decided while she was still at an early stage in her pregnancy that Emily would continue on in per school and not pull her out at all. Mulder was gone, at work and Scully was left at home, alone. She just happened to be stupid enough, due to what one calls "pregnancy brain," to pick up the phone. "Dana. How come I haven't gotten any shower invitations from you yet?" Scully groaned. Lord no. She wanted to rest, take it easy, not have a baby shower. Besides, she still had a lot of stuff from Emily. "Because I'm not having one Mom." Her mother gasped into the phone, as if it was the worst thing she had ever heard. "Now you are." That was all there was to it. Nothing was going to change her mothers mind.

The next weekend, Mulder hid at the Lone Gunmen's base. He wished he could have taken Emily with him, but Gramma had other plans for her. He had left to the house being turned into a balloon haven. Pink and blue helium balloons littered everything and poor Scully looked just as miserable as Emily sitting on the sofa while Mrs. Scully over killed the baby theme. Mulder returned to the apartment to two of everything. Since Scully had refused to learn the baby's sex, all of Mrs. Scully's friends had gotten one in blue and one in pink of everything. Scully looked disgruntled on the sofa when he walked back. He tripped over a car seat walking to Scully, bending down, amid the mounds of pink and blue baby clothing sets and pecked her on the cheek. "Are you ok?" Scully just pointed behind her. Mulder had completely failed to notice another person in the home. Standing in the kitchen was a strange woman, attempting to clean up the party. Scully just shook her head. Mulder helped Scully get up and walked with her into the bed room, making sure he tripped on everything, clearing Scully's walk way.

Scully went and sat down on the edge of the bed, looking close to tears. "Where's Emily?" Mulder asked, shutting the door to the bedroom. "She's so mad that that woman is here that she's in her room refusing to come out. I'm pretty sure if I could have moved, I would be in there with her right now." Scully exhaled. "My mom. She. My mom." Mulder nodded. Mrs. Scully could go a bit overboard at times, only out of love and concern. "That woman out there, is basically supposed to wait on me hand and foot. I hate it." Mulder kneeled down in front of Scully to get a good look at her. "And what else?" How could Mulder always tell when something was wrong? He always seemed to be able to see the layers of her problems. Tears poked at the corner of her eyes. "We're not ready." Her voice cracked, emotions and fear breaking through. "What do we need to do?" Mulder was determined to make this right. Honestly, it felt like all he'd done lately was make Scully cry. He hated it. This one he was going to get right. "Well, obviously you've seen the extensive amounts of crap out there….We have no place to put it. And in time we're going to need a nursery. We've never really settled on names…Just thrown them out there and done nothing." A knock on the door interrupted them. Thinking it was Emily, they paused to allow the door to open. Instead Mrs. Scully's hired help greeted them. "Dana. I was going to take off. Oh no! You're crying. What's wrong?" She was half way to the bed when Mulder jumped up. "Out!" He pointed to the door. The woman looked stunned. "Thank you for your help but out out out. Don't come back." Mulder ushered her out of the bedroom and out of the apartment.

When the door slammed behind him, he turned to see Emily sticking her head out from around the corner of the hallway. "Is she gone?" Mulder squatted down on his heels, holding his arms out for Emily. She happily met them, being picked up into a hug. "Gramma dressed you today didn't she?" Emily nodded, pulling at the lace of her socks. "It itches." Mulder kissed her red curls. Mulder set her down. "Go into your room and I'll help you change. I have to talk to Mommy first though, so I'll be there in a minute." Emily smiled up at Mulder. Today, he was her personal savior. Finally someone was going to take that lace slip off of her, the black buckled shoes weren't bad, it was the darn lacy frilly socks that made it bad. Her stupid floral patterned dress, with it's lace collar and long sleeves was just as bad as it could get in her world.

Mulder returned to Scully, who had managed to calm down a bit. "Is she gone?" She asked Mulder through her tears. He squatted down in front of her again, taking her cheeks in his hands, cleaning the trails up. "Yes." Scully let out another exhale of relief. But her lip began to quiver anew. "What about everything else?" Mulder shushed her. "It'll be ok. We'll find room for everything. I know we're not having twins so half of it will get returned. We can start looking into homes tomorrow if that makes you feel better as well. As for names, Dana, I trust you. Pick what feels right to you." He bent forward and kissed Scully again. He honestly didn't care what the baby's name was, just that it was healthy and theirs. He placed his hand in hers and pulled her up. "Where are we going?" Scully asked, being led out of the room. "To change Emily into something she'd rather be in. How could you let your mom dress her like that?" Scully shrugged. "Have you not noticed what I'm wearing? I have no energy left to fight her." Mulder took in her outfit. Floor length. Long sleeved. An ugly beige color. Mulder was certain his mother had worn something similar to that when pregnant with Samantha. "Have you looked at her today?" Mulder asked, opening the door of Emily's bedroom. Scully laughed and sat down in the rocker that was still in Emily's bedroom, which would have to be moved to her own bedroom soon. "This is not funny." Emily said, clearly upset. Scully covered her mouth. "I'm pretty sure that was my first day of kindergarten dress." Scully couldn't help it. She lost it. Mulder shook his head and bent down to attend to Emily peeling off her shoes and socks, fishing out a pair of patterned leggings from her dresser. Scully was doubled over in tears from her giggling fit. Emily stopped Mulder before he could get the leggings on. "No. I want my princess undies." She stated dropping the ones Mrs. Scully had put on her to reveal lace…particularly a very lacy tushie. Scully leaned back in the rocker and began her laughter attack anew. All the while Mulder, very seriously, because to Emily, this was a very serious matter, the little fashionestia she was, redressed her into the gray and black patterned leggings, she did allow the black patent buckled shoes to come back on and a black t shirt sweater.

The next day Mulder had set Scully up in bed after taking Emily to preschool. He had taken the morning off to be with her. Scully lay amongst the pillows while Mulder plugged information into his laptop, generating home searches in the area. "Here's a nice townhouse Scully. 15 minutes away from the office, 10 from Emily's pre school. Tri-level, four bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. Master suit on the top floor." Scully leaned in and looked at the pictures. "Hmmm….It's not bad." Mulder sighed. That was what she had said to the last five he'd shown her. Noticing the time, Mulder stood up and grabbed Scully's laptop booting it up for her. Work was calling his name. Mulder switched out the laptops, placing a kiss on her head. Scully sighed. "I'm sorry Mulder. I'll just know it when I see it, like I did with this place. They all have potential. I don't know. Maybe I'm just too nested to look right now." Mulder tilted her chin up at him. "It'll all work out. I love you." He kissed her slowly and passionately this time before turning his attention to her belly. "And you. Don't give Mom any trouble while I'm gone." Scully smiled. "Take it easy today. I'll be back in a few hours."

When Mulder walked into the basement office, Doggett was already there, sitting behind a desk that Mulder had gotten in for Scully after her fiasco in Philadelphia. Doggett looked up as Mulder walked in, nodding at him. "How's Dana doing?" Doggett asked. Mulder inwardly cringed. No one but him at the FBI got to call her Dana….Then again he felt the same way when anyone just called her Scully. He should probably work on that. "She's good. I left her house hunting. Hoping she doesn't end up too overwhelmed." Mulder replied, cracking a grin. "This late in the game?" Doggett asked, bewildered. Mulder shrugged. "She got overwhelmed with the size of the place this past weekend. Think she finally realized, we don't really have the space she wants. Was letting her feel that one out on her own." Mulder's phone went off. He looked down at the caller ID and nearly panicked. "Scully what's wrong?" Scully was confused. "I was just calling to let you know I found the perfect townhouse. It's near Emily's preschool, tri-level, master suite, but great opened floor plan, plus a basement." Mulder exhaled. "Ok. We'll go look at it later."


	19. Chapter 19

Two weeks went by. Scully and Mulder had packed up both of their places finally and officially moved in together. Emily took the move well. Perhaps the bigger room helped her transition and that Mulder had brought along his much loved fish. Mulder had begun to use his vacation time for the move and to set their home up so Scully could rest. Scully, however had other plans. Scully was trying desperately to get what would become Mulder's office in the master suite into the nursery. Mulder eventually had to boot Scully out and finish building the crib and changing table himself. The random duplicates from the baby shower were separated into the boys things versus the girls things and placed in the nursery.

As the days began to go by, Mulder could tell Scully was becoming uncomfortable. She constantly had to pee and the five minutes it took her to get comfortable sitting were ruined by the ten minutes it took her to get up to go pee. Mulder felt terrible. Mulder felt even worse when Doggett called him, telling him that he had a case and he needed Mulder to go with him. Mulder called Mrs. Scully and got her to take Emily. Scully could barely move, let alone keep up with Emily. There was no way he could leave Emily with her, as helpful as Emily was and trying to be for Scully, Emily was too little. "I'll only be a few hours away." Mulder said, placing a kiss on Scully. "Only a phone call away." Scully grinned. "Go on Mulder. I'll be fine."

Mulder tapped the steering wheel impatiently wishing he could just magically appear in the remote upstate New York area. Bats. That was all Doggett would say on the phone. He had no other way to describe it Mulder guessed. He was just hoping he could get there and back in time for Scully.

While in rural upstate New York, an old farmhouse had been destroyed. It was the undertaker and his wife. Doggett sat there staring up at the rafter of the wrap around porch at what appeared to be claw marks. He had immediately called Mulder up. This was beyond his area. While Mulder was gone, Monica Reyes had been assigned to work with him. Mulder had intended to use every vacation day he'd been saving and pulling the maternity leave for men card. He didn't want to miss a single second. All in all, it would be eight weeks. Exactly what Scully was taking. Although both would still have vacation days in the bank; needless to say they didn't get out much. Reyes had said the two that had been killed were murdered, massive blood loss from deep bites. Doggett had thought all the way there it was still animal, while the bite marks appeared to be human.

Mulder pulled into the front yard of the old farmhouse, lost in time. Most of the scene had been cleaned up, markings still left everywhere. When Mulder walked up to Doggett, and placed a hand on his shoulder, Doggett jumped slightly, startled. "They're saying they aren't sure its human now… I don't get it." Mulder stared at the rafter. Reyes came out from the home. "Agent Mulder." She said nodding her head. "Don't get me hit this time." Mulder joked at her. The last time the three of them were together, it had gotten a bit messy. Mulder preferred not to repeat that. The detective working the case locally seemed to be an ass. Ass was the nice way to put it too. He refused to believe. He kept yelling about it being an animal. That everything they were finding refused to say anything about a human gnawing on the two old people in his morgue. Old people was the detective's words…. Not his.

Mulder followed Reyes and Doggett up the stairs in the home. Reyes had found a couple of prints in the home, leading from the stairs. Doggett threw it out there. "Maybe he has a deformed foot?" Reyes raised an eyebrow at him. Mulder held in a laugh. This was like him and Scully before they had gotten to know each other so well. "Then please John, tell me how the deformed foot killer manages to leave a print only every 25 feet?" Reyes tapped her foot, demanding his response. Mulder was staying out of this one. Mulder turned to the door in the bedroom. He opened it up, revealing the closet, and when he looked up he saw the opening to an attic. He paused to interrupt the two flinging looks at each other. The two male agents hoisted Reyes up into the rafters, the males following. "V for victory" Doggett quipped. "What do you mean?" Reyes asked. "We said the guy was missing two fingers right? I found them." Reyes looked over Doggett's shoulder. "And you couldn't have put it more politely? And what is that smell?" Mulder joined the over the shoulder looking. "They've been regurgitate." He said. Reyes and Doggett stared at him. "By….?" Doggett mumbled. Mulder shrugged his shoulders. He couldn't say that yet.

They left to go to the hotel, while Mulder went to talk to the corner. He was informed that they had found anticoagulants only found in the saliva of bats. Doggett had followed. He had done his own investigation. He pulled a newspaper clipping, showing a human bat from forty-four years ago. Everyone involved in the locating of the creature had been killed. Mulder stared at the photograph of the clipping, when their cell phones sounded.

They were in the attic of a second scene. A woman had been mauled by something unknown, but the claw marks from the first scene appeared at this scene as well. Reyes came up from downstairs. "I found a picture album. This may be the tie. The victim's daughter Ariel, well her dead body was pulled from the river last week." The detective shook his head. "I got that call. I had to give her that bad news." Reyes looked at him. "You also told her that her daughter's body was burned beyond recognition. She also hadn't seen her daughter in forty four years, the day according to Dogette's article, those murders started the first time." The detective stared. He looked dumbfounded. "The daughter is the connection. How at the moment I'm not sure, but Reyes is onto something here." Mulder told the dumbfounded detective. The detective's face went red. "You are kidding me!" Mulder walked away. He needed the body exhumed. Doggett and Reyes would handle that.

Outside the second farmhouse he'd visited in as many days, he pulled out his phone and dialed to home. Scully answered. "Hello?" She sounded in pain and short of breath. "Scully?" He was worried. "Are you ok?" He wished he could see her face to see if she was lying to him or not. "Fine. Just not feeling so great. How's the case going?" Mulder went off track and after a few minutes hung up. He went back in, seeing the detective stomp angrily towards his cruiser and take off at top speeds, followed shortly by Reyes and Doggett. "Agent Reyes… Can I ask a favor of you?" Reyes nodded at Mulder. "Can I get you to go to my place and see if Dana's ok? I have a feeling she's not." Reyes nodded and took the keys to his car.

That night another phone call came in for Doggett and Mulder. The detective had been killed in the same manner. It was revealed to them, that the woman pulled from the river had died of natural causes and been burned only afterwards. A light bulb went off for Mulder. "The body." He mumbled under his breath. "It kills like an animal, but stalks like a human. The undertaker and his wife prepared the body. The detective was called out to the scene. The old woman identified the body. The body is the connection." Looking at Mulder, he exhaled. "So who else would have had contact then?" Doggett had nothing else to go on, mind as well see if Mulder's theory could pan out. "The person that found the body." Mulder picked up the file for the charred victim on the slab that the corner had left. "According to this, that person would be a Stefanink." Doggett felt his own light bulb go off. "In the picture, there's an Ernie Stefanink who found the creature. Must be his brother." Mulder looked down at the file. "There's an address. Let's go."

When Doggett and Mulder pulled into the drive, an old man was standing by the river. "Mr. Stefanink?" The man stood, turned around and nodded. "Gave us a bit of a startle. We went to your house up the road and couldn't find you." Stefanink shrugged. "So?" Mulder flipped his badge. "We're with the FBI. We think you're life may be in danger." The old man looked puzzled. "The body you pulled out of the river, sir." Doggett reminded him. "I just fished it out of the river." He told them. "It may just be your connection to the body." Mulder said. The old man stomped by the two of them, when Doggett yelled out "Ernie Stefanink." He stopped. "That was my brother. Leave it alone and leave me alone. He died forty years ago. That thing killed him."

Mulder and Doggett sat in the car, hiding. "Nine hours." Doggett said. Mulder nodded. He looked at his phone again. No signal. He kept willing the nearby towers to pick up signal so that he could call Reyes and see if Scully was ok. He was sure if it weren't for the case, he'd have pulled all of his hair out by now. "He's hiding something." Doggett said. Mulder nodded again. The two watched Stefanink drive off after loading his car. They tailed him at a distance. They watched him load up a wooden raft with rope attached to it and send it out with supplies. The two found themselves a canoe and paddled out.

They saw a man pulling at the rope of the raft on what appeared to be a small island. "Stop right there!" Doggett yelled. The man took off. As the two approached the shore, Mulder hopped out and went running. Doggett, after dragging their mode of transportation up, went the opposite direction of Mulder. The two cornered the old man. "Are you Ernie Stefanink?" Doggett asked, shining his flashlight towards him. "Yes." The old man nodded. They saw the man in the picture. He'd aged but he had the same features. They walked with him to his home. They didn't want to arrest or hurt him, they just wanted answers.

"How is a man supposed to live when your own fear becomes your obsession." He questioned the agents in his home, staring from bat paraphernalia to bat paraphernalia. "Bats are very close to apes on the evolutionary scale. Just as the humans sprung from the apes, so too can humans have sprung from bats." He nodded. "They can hunt and fly like bats, but it hunts with vengeance of the humans. I had to come here, and cut off all communication so I could come here and go into hiding. My wife stayed here with me the whole time." He began to cry. "I had to have her buried at the cemetery, in consecrated ground." Mulder looked down at him. "It's killed four more people. All who have had contact with your wife." Ernie went pale. "My brother?" He asked. "Your brother's ok. We talked to him early today." Ernie began to shake his head. "It hunts at night." Doggett went out the door determined to see if everything was all right. Naturally, that was when Mulder's phone caught some signal. He picked it up. "Agent Mulder. You need to get here as soon as possible." That was all he could get out of Reyes.

Oh god… Scully. Was she hurt? Was she in labor? Was he going to miss it? He began to panic. He had tried to ask questions but the communication was so fuzzy he had barely gotten the fact that he needed to get home now. He paced, waiting for Doggett to return. The second Doggett came in; he was determined to take off back to DC. "Jesus. Where is he?" He mumbled at the window, looking out for Doggett's return. "You're marked now you know. You can't leave. It will hunt you down too." Mulder looked angrily at Ernie. "I'm here to protect you." He exhaled out, still trying to remain calm. "You can't even protect yourself now." Ernie spat back at him. "This thing has waited forty four years, it will wait some more." Beeping went off in the room behind Ernie. He got up and scurried over to it. "What is it?" Mulder asked. "Ground radar. The sensors are set at ten feet high. Anything big enough will set it off and whatever it is its coming through the trees." Suddenly there was a thud on the roof. The two looked up. This wasn't good. Mulder pulled his gun from its holster and pointed at the ceiling. He cautiously followed the thudding. When it got quiet he fired a couple of rounds into the ceiling. When it moved he fired again. They heard nothing. Mulder popped open the door to see if he'd managed to take care of the problem. He began to walk the perimeter of the house, looking up at the roof, hoping to see a body. Inside, Ernie, loaded the shotgun he had. Mulder came to the chimney and stared. It couldn't be.

He heard screams come from inside. Mulder kicked down the door to see the gross creature in front of him. It stood as tall as a man and had more grey tones in its skin than a human would. You could see its ribs. While the thing looked back at Mulder, with Ernie's blood dripping down its face, Mulder fired a few shots. Doggett called out from behind Mulder. He turned startled and Doggett let out a few rounds. The thing that was in mid flight crashed to the ground with a thud, louder and more sick sounding than when it had been walking on the roof. It was dead. They could leave and not be marked. "Are you ok?" Doggett asked breathily at Mulder. "I'm ok. But your not." He grabbed to steady Doggett down to the ground as his partner passed out on him. He had a lot of blood loss and if they didn't get to a hospital soon, Doggett would be in trouble, but currently everyone was fine.

Mulder wasn't sure how he did it but he managed to get Ernie and Doggett back to the canoe and get them to the shore where he ran to Ernie's brother's home to call for help. After confirming that everyone was ok, he tackily left a note for Doggett, hoping he'd understand and be forgiven at a later date.

_I've got to get back for Scully. Reyes had called and said I needed to get there. I'm sorry I couldn't stick around. I'll send Reyes back for you._

_Mulder_


	20. Authors note

just a small an to you guys. Firstly happy New Years! Hello 2014. Secondly my computer is refusing to boot itself up. This has happened before and hopefully it will come back up, however it may be a bit before I can update. It's all written, it's just all on my laptop. Thanks!


	21. Author update

Ok guys. List if life:

1- thank you so much for the reviews! I'm so grateful and happy!

2- I live in a snow globe right now which leads to

3- I had a reservation to take my laptop in today (my friend is thinking I killed my hard drive which means my hole story might be gone so I'll have to rewrite it) but I was called off of work tonight because we are in the middle of a blizzard which leads to

4- the next appointment that would work with my work schedule is Wednesday.

I'm hoping very much to be able to be posting again come Wednesday. Our move to our temporary location should also be complete which means if my hard drive is gone I will be able to start writing again. I am not going back to school this semester since I have zero clue what's ever going on so I took a break to get life figured out. I do hope you guys will stick with me and I do apologize for all of this.


	22. Chapter 22

Hoping to make this my final life update! Visited the apple store and yay my hard drive is still there! Bad news is there is one stupid part fried to help power up my computer and my computer is basically vintage meaning no touchie by apple. I am getting a new laptop tomorrow and hopefully getting my hard drive off of my macbook which means I WILL FINISH UPDATING THE REST OF THE STORY IMMEDIATELY! I will probably post the entire thing lol! Thanks for waiting guys! I hope you believe it to be worth the wait!


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